Emily Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by Luna25
Summary: AU The Durlseys and Potter both have daughters instead of sons. When Emily Potter is sent to the Dursleys, Petunia ends up falling in love with her niece, but Vernon doesn't. Things go to a head one day and life changes. Please R & R!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter world. The great author J. K. Rowling does. So please don't sue.

Summary: AU. Petunia and Vernon Dursley have a daughter. The prophecy is worded as 'he or she', and so Lily and James Potter have a daughterm named Emily Rose, as well. When they die, the girl is sent to live with her aunt and uncle. Vernon does not want a witch in the family, but Petunia remembers the love she once had for her sister when she sees her niece and so convinces him to let Emily stay. After that, things go much differently from the books.

Petunia Dursley looked down at her newborn daughter, whom she and Vernon had decided to name Diana Violet. It was custom in her family for girls to have either a first or middle name after a flower. Vernon would have liked to have a boy, but he didn't mind having a daughter at all, especially one that looked as charming and pretty as Diana. She had lovely blue-green eyes and what little hair she had was golden and promised to turn out curly later. Her parents had fallen in love with her the moment they had set eyes on her, and Vernon had said good-naturedly that they could always try and have a son a few years later.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans, the maternal grandparents, looked down at their first grandchild and grinned. "Diana's a lovely baby," said Mrs. Evans. "I hope Lily and James have as wonderful a baby when it's their time."

An annoyed expression briefly crossed Petunia's face at the mention of her sister and brother-in-law, but she didn't say anything.

Over a month later, in St. Mungo's, Lily and James Potter were gazing at the new addition in their family, a daughter they had named Emily Rose. With them were Sirius Black, who had been named godfather, Remus Lupin, who had half-jokingly been named 'god-wolf', and Frank and Alice Longbottom, with their son Neville Frank, who had born the day, or technically four hours, before Emily.

"It's weird how our children were born so close together," remarked Lily to Alice. They had been good friends at Hogwarts.

Alice grinned. "It is. I'm pretty sure it'll mean that Neville and Emily will be good friends eventually."

Hours later, Lily wrote two letters, informing her parents and Petunia of Emily's birth. Though she hadn't gotten along with her sister after getting the Hogwarts letter and hadn't spoken to each other for a couple years, beyond the occasional Christmas card and obligatory gift, she felt Petunia deserved to hear about the birth, and through their parents.

Petunia made a face when the owl flew in the kitchen and left a letter. Her first thought was to throw it away when she saw that it was from Lily, but then she realized that it was probably about the birth of Lily's child. It would be better to read the letter than hear about the news from her parents. With a sigh, Petunia reluctantly opened the envelope and read the letter. As she expected, it was about the birth of her niece, named Emily Rose.

Several months later, there was an awkward hour when Petunia and Vernon brought Diana to visit her grandparents and found Lily and James were there with Emily. The Dursleys were civil to the Potters for the Evanses' sake, but it was not a pleasant visit. Emily and Diana appeared to get along well, which Vernon strongly didn't like. Petunia didn't much like it, either, but a tiny part of her said that they were only babies and it was only one meeting. They could just make sure the cousins didn't have anything to do with each other after this.

On November 2nd, 1981, Petunia got the shock of her life when she opened the door to set out the milk bottles and saw a bundled baby on her doorstep. After recovering from her shock, she picked up baby and the letter that was resting on top of the blankets and went inside. After reading the letter, a dark look came to her face and she regarded her niece, who woke up. The green eyes, looking exactly like Lily's, stared up at her. Petunia suddenly remembered Lily as a baby. Emily looked exactly her, except for the ears and nose, which seemed to be from the Potter side of the family.

"Oh no," muttered Petunia. "I can't just cast Lily's own flesh and blood away. I did love Lily. And I had promised once that I would look after her. Yes, I resent that she went off to that school and became a freak, but she was my sister. And Emily looks so sweet and helpless. Vernon won't like this though."

With a sigh, she stuck a pacifer in Emily's mouth and then went to get Vernon. As expected, he threw a fit over their niece having to live with them. "I will not have a freak living under our roof and corrupting Diana!" he shouted. "That brat goes! We can dump her at an orphanage or something!"

"And what if one of _them_ is keeping an eye on our house and sees that we got rid of Emily?" asked Petunia. "Then we'll have those freaks on our doorstep, making a big scene. What will the neighbors say then? It's better that we just keep her to avoid trouble. And people will think we're so wonderful and kind to be so willing to take in our orphaned niece."

"Fine, the freak can stay," said Vernon grudgingly. "She can have Diana's old things."

During the day, while Vernon was at work, Petunia showed her love toward Emily. When he came home, she focused her love completely on Diana, and pretended to have a dislike for Emily. It pained her to do it, but she had to keep the peace in the house.

Di and Em, as they had taken to calling to each other, got along quite well, despite being toddlers. Though Vernon constantly put down Emily when he was home, Petunia said otherwise when he was gone and made it clear to Diana that she was to be nice to her cousin.

One day, when Diana was three, something odd happened. "Girls, it's naptime," said Petunia.

"'Kay, Aunt Tunia," said Emily. She walked over to the blanket and pillow spread on the ground and lay down. Diana, however, was not so willing.

"Not done with blocks!" she wailed.

"Sorry, Di, but it's naptime," said Petunia gently. "See how Em listened and is taking her nap? You can play with your blocks after naptime." She picked Diana up and placed her on the blanket spread out for her.

"Want blocks!" Diana reached out her hands and suddenly several of the blocks floated up in the air and slowly glided toward her.

Petunia screamed, breaking Diana's concentration. The blocks fell to the ground and Emily sat up to see what the noise was all about.

"Mummy! You made blocks fall!" protested Diana.

After a moment to compose herself, Petunia said firmly, "It's naptime and you are going to take a nap, Diana. Em, lie back down. The two of you can play later. And Diana, don't tell Daddy about what you did with the blocks. He will be mad at you, like he is with Em."

"'Kay, Mummy," answered Diana, nodding. She lay down and shut her eyes. Emily did the same and then Petunia quietly left the room and sat down in the kitchen.

It appeared her daughter was a witch, after what had just happened with the blocks. _Vernon is not going to be happy when he finds out_, Petunia thought. _He'll accuse Emily of corrupting Diana or something similar and insist on her going to an orphanage. So I just don't tell him about this just yet. I'm not going to let Emily leave us._

Things didn't go so well after that. Emily accidentally did magic, in front of Vernon no less, who threw a fit. After shouting for several minutes, he turned Emily over and began spanking her. Petunia, horrified, managed to get him to stop by reminding him that if the 'freaks' found out about it, there'd be trouble.

That evening, Diana had a nightmare and woke everyone up with her wails. Petunia was able to soothe her and get her back in bed. She left the room to find Vernon hitting Emily.

"Vernon! What are you doing?" she asked, horrified.

"The freak must have done something to upset Diana with a bad dream," snapped Vernon.

"Well, stop it," she replied. "The girl can sleep in the cupboard under the stairs henceforth as punishment." She really didn't want to make her niece sleep there, but it was the one place too small for Vernon to enter and therefore would keep Emily safe at night. She walked over, picked up a sobbing Emily, and headed down the stairs.

Petunia made up a bed in the cupboard and gently tucked Emily in. "Sorry about this, Em dear. Uncle Vernon doesn't like you, so you'll be safer here."

Emily nodded. "'Kay, Aunt Tunia. Why doesn't Uncle Vernon like me?"

"Because you can do something special that he doesn't like," Petunia replied. "Now go back to sleep. I'll try to make sure Uncle Vernon won't hurt you again, Em."

Things came to head when Em and Di were four. Vernon had a bad day at work and so came home in a foul temper. Seeing Emily, he decided to take out his anger on her. "Stop Daddy!" shouted Diana as Petunia came out the kitchen to see what was the matter. "Leave Em alone!"

"What do you think you're doing, Vernon?" demanded Petunia icily. "Don't you dare lay a hand on Emily."

"She's corrupted you both!" yelled Vernon, eyes wide. "We should have dumped her at an orphanage the day she got dumped on our doorstep." He kicked Emily, who let out a shriek of pain.

"No!" shouted Diana. She raised her hands and a block flew into them, which she proceeded to throw at her father.

"Now look!" roared Vernon. "Diana's a freak too! It's contagious! I have to beat it out of her!"

Petunia ran back into the kitchen, grabbed a large frying pan, and ran out again to see Vernon hitting Diana. Without hesitation, she swung the frying pan at his head, knocking him out. "Stop crying, Di. I'm going to make sure Daddy never hurts you or Em again." She took a small suitcase from the hall closet and told the two girls to pack up their favorite toys. She then went upstairs and packed two suitcases of clothes and toiletry items. When she was done, she put the suitcases in the boot of her car and returned to the play room.

"Come on, girls. We're going to go somewhere safe." Petunia picked up the suitcase of toys and children's books and led the two girls out to the car. She made sure that they were safely buckled up in the back seat and drove away. She planned to divorce Vernon and have nothing more to do with him again. Her parents had left her their house and some money when they'd died a month after Emily's first birthday. (The rest of the money had been left to Lily, which belonged to Emily now.) The house had been sold, so she had plenty of money to take care of things until she could get a job and the divorce was final.

After a couple of hours, Petunia booked a room at a cheap hotel in London and bought dinner for the girls. Diana, who normally fussed a bit, was quiet and well-behaved, most likely because of what had happened with her father. An hour after that, Em and Di went to sleep and Petunia began planning what she was going to do.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Petunia contacted the lawyer that had worked for her parents and had been executor of their will. As he also took on cases involving divorce, he agreed to Petunia hiring him after hearing her out. Mr. Webster, the lawyer, promised to have everything drawn up in a week and would then notify Vernon about the divorce proceedings. Since Petunia had no wish of getting money or anything else from her soon-to-be ex-husband, it was quite likely that she would get her divorce with very little fuss. Add to the fact that he didn't want a niece or daughter that were magical, it was almost guaranteed that he would agree to the divorce at once.

The next piece of business was to find someplace to stay that did not involve a hotel. While the hotel Petunia, Emily, and Diana were currently staying in was cheap, it would take awhile for the divorce to be settled. The cost of staying in the hotel for a month would end up being more expensive than a month's rent for a small flat. After combing through the ads in the newspaper, she called a number and arranged a tour for the advertised flat that she thought might suit.

The next day, Petunia dropped Emily and Diana off at a child care center for the day and viewed the flat. It had a living room, a tiny kitchen, two small bedrooms, and a bathroom. The rent was two hundred pounds a month, mainly due to the fact that it was small and in one of the lesser off neighborhoods (though not the truly poor part, where it could be dangerous.) She decided to take the flat, for the next few months at least, and as there weren't any other takers, was able to sign the lease right away. Petunia wrote out a cheque for five hundred pounds to pay for the first two months' rent, and then left to purchase some used furniture and meet with Mr. Webster again.

After three days, Petunia moved in the flat with her daughter and niece and called Vernon, informing him of the divorce. "And don't you dare contest it!" she snapped. "I don't want anything from you, including money. I have the money my parents left me, and I'll get a job. You never have to see me, Diana, or Emily ever again, except for the day in court when the divorce is made final. You can go about your merry way and find some other woman to marry who won't have any 'inconvenient' relatives or produce a child that's magical."

Vernon made a sound that showed his disgust for the word 'magical' and then demanded, "And what if I do contest the divorce?"

"Then I will happily tell the world that you were abusing my niece and were on your way to abusing my daughter as well."

"Fine. You can have your divorce. Good-bye." With that, he hung up the phone.

After sixth months, the divorce was made final. It would have taken less time if the judge and Vernon's lawyer hadn't been so busy with other cases. When that was done, Petunia reverted to her maiden name of Evans and changed Diana's last name from Dursley to Evans as well. After that, Petunia began looking for a job near London, but not in the city itself, for she preferred to have Emily and Diana grow up in the suburbs. To avoid having to spend more of her inheritance than necessary, she took a temporary job, working part time as a waitress, and left the two girls at child care center while she was at work.

Job-hunting was something of a chore, especially considering that Petunia had only held two jobs before she'd gotten married and became a homemaker. The first job had been a part-time store clerk, back when she had been attending college. When she had graduated, she had then worked for two years at a medical clinic, filing patients' records, scheduling appointments, and some receptionist work.

After five months of being a waitress and going to interviews that didn't bring any result other than that she wasn't hired, she finally found an advertisement of a dental clinic that had an opening. The job was essentially the same as the one she had in the medical clinic. The salary was decent and it looked promising. Petunia instantly called the clinic and set up an interview with the Drs. Grangers, husband and wife, who ran it.

The interview, which was with both dentists, went quite smoothly. At the end, the wife said, "Well, you seem to be well qualified for this position, Ms. Evans. Not many other people have applied, so you there is a good chance that you will get it. We will call you within three days to set up a second interview if my husband and I decide that we will likely hire you."

"Thank you, Dr. Granger," answered Petunia. "I hope I will be able to work for the two of you at your fine clinic."

On the second day, the husband called to set up a second interview. At the conclusion, Petunia was offered the job. "Thank you, Dr. Granger. I accept. I just have a small matter of moving from my flat in London to a place here."

"Do you wish to live in a house or a flat?" asked Mrs. Dr. Granger.

"A house," responded Petunia. "I have a daughter and niece and would like to raise them in a house."

"It just so happens that there's a house for sale on our street," said Mr. Dr. Granger. "It had four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a W.C., and a lovely view. It's not that expensive, either, since the owners want to sell the house as quickly as possible. You can buy it if you find it to your liking."

"And during the time it takes for you to finalize the purchase and move in, you, your daughter, and niece can stay with us," added Mrs. Dr. Granger. "How old are the two girls?"

"Emily and Diana are five," replied Petunia. " Diana, my daughter, is older by a month and a half, though. And thank you very much, Dr. Granger."

"You can call me Cecilia and my husband John, rather than Dr. Granger, so as to avoid confusion as to which one of us you're referring to, Ms. Evans."

"Then please call me Petunia," said Petunia with a smile. She liked the two dentists immensely, and felt that Cecilia Granger would be a better friend than Yvonne, who had been her friend since primary school.

"All right, Petunia," said John. "We have a daughter named Hermione, who will turn six in September. Perhaps she will become friends with your daughter and niece."

Cecilia smiled. "That would be wonderful! Hermione spends too much time reading and needs to take some time to play. It's nice that she's reading at a level advanced for her age, but she has to spend some time playing with other girls."

"I can understand, Cecilia. Di and Em had me teach them to read when they were three. I taught them the alphabet and sounding words out and by the time they were four, they could read simple picture books. Their reading has improved, though I don't think their level is as advanced as your daughter's."

There was some more conversation, in which Petunia revealed that she was divorced and explained why, leaving the part out about magic. The Drs. Granger sympathized and then Petunia left.

By the weekend, she had seen the house for sale and made an offer. As the money from the sale of her inheritated house was enough to cover most of the cost of the new house, the owners decided to sell to her a week later. During that time, Petunia started work, enrolled Emily and Diana in the local primary school, where they'd be starting kindergarten in three weeks time, and temporarily moved into the Grangers' home.

Hermione, after meeting Emily and Diana, decided that she wanted to be friends with them, and vice versa. As neither of the two girls could pronounce Hermione's name properly, they shortened it to "Mia". The older girl accepted the nickname, especially as she had some difficulty with the pronounciation of her name as well.

By September, Petunia had moved in the new house and was firmly settled in her new job. The Drs. Granger were very nice to her and she was efficent at her work. Emily and Diana started school. Life appeared to be quite pleasant.


	3. Chapter 3

"Teacher's pet," hissed a girl as Hermione passed.

"Bookworm," added a boy, a nasty grin on his face.

"Tattletale," said another girl, for that morning, Hermione had told on her for trying to copy homework.

"Shut up!" snapped Diana. "Leave Mia alone!"

"Yeah," seconded Emily angrily. "She's nice! And Agatha, you know copying other people's work is 'gainst the rules, so Mia had to tell the teacher."

"You know nothing, Four-eyes," retorted Agatha. "You've got an ugly scar on your forehead and ugly glasses."

Emily sighed loudly. When she started second grade, the school nurse had discovered that she needed glasses. After Aunt Petunia had bought them, several of the less kind students in school started calling Emily 'four-eyes', mainly because of her friendship with Hermione, who had been labeled 'teacher's pet' and was generally disliked.

"Em's glasses aren't ugly!" said Hermione angrily. While she rarely stood up for herself, she did so for her two best friends. She glared at Agatha, and suddenly there was a flash of light and the other students burst into laughter when they saw black marker circles around Agatha's eyes. Janice, Agatha's best friend, took out a mirror,

"What have you done?" shrieked Agatha when she saw her reflection. "You're a freak as well as being teacher's pet, Hermione Granger!"

Fortunately for her, the circles washed off, as she disappeared into the bathroom for several minutes and came back out without them. "I'm telling the teacher on you, Hermione!"

"For what?" asked Diana. "The black circles? Mia didn't touch you, so Mrs. Hargreaves can't punish her."

Agatha glared at her. "Well, someone made the black circles appear on my face! And when I find out who it was, I'm telling!"

Emily stifled a chuckle and said, "Come on, Di and Mia. Let's go see if we can go to the park. Mrs. Hargreaves didn't give us any homework today."

Aunt Petunia and Hermione's parents gave permission, so the three girls headed to the park, which was a five minute walk away from their street. To their surprise, a boy was at the swings where they liked to hang out.

He had dark blond hair, gray eyes, was dressed in a green sweater and black pants, and appeared to be around their age. However, none of the three girls had seen him before, not at school or anywhere else.

"Hello," said Hermione politely. "What's your name?"

"Alexander Carrow," replied the boy. "I'm eight. You can call me Alex. What's yours?"

"I'm Hermione Granger, Mia for short. These are my best friends Diana Evans and Emily Potter. Di and Em are cousins."

Alex's eyes widened and turned to look at Emily. "I've heard of you! You're famous! 'Cept with my family and their friends. They hate you."

"I'm famous?" asked Emily, puzzled. "What for? And why would your family hate me, Alex?"

"Don't you know 'bout the Dark Lord and how your parents died and everything, Em?"

"What Dark Lord? And Aunt Petunia told me that my parents died because a really evil person killed them and wanted to kill me, but wasn't able to."

"The evil person was the Dark Lord," answered Alex. "He's got a name, beginning with 'v', but my family and their friends call him the 'Dark Lord' or 'You-Know-Who'. I think they were his followers. Anyway, he killed your parents, then tried to kill you, but you stopped him. You beat him and that's why you're famous. All the good people like you."

"But I can't be famous!" protested Emily. "Or my teachers and the other students would have said something."

A look of understanding appeared on Alex's face. "Oh, you're living with Muggles! That's why you don't know. You're only famous in the wizarding world."

"Muggles?" asked Diana, puzzled.

"People that can't do magic," explained Alex.

"And what wizarding world?" demanded Hermione. "Magic's not real. Wizards like Merlin don't exist."

"Yes, they do, but Muggles don't know 'bout it," said Alex patiently. "'Cept for the Muggle prime minister and those that either marry a wtich or wizard or have relatives are one. Like your grandparents, Em. Your mother was a witch, even though her family was Muggle. She's what the wizarding world call 'Muggleborn'. The nice ones, that is. Mean ones like my family call them 'Mudbloods'. I don't like that."

"So I'm a witch?" asked Emily. "Does that mean I have to fly on a broom, wear black robes, have a black cat, and look ugly and have warts?"

"No!" exclaimed Alex. "Well, you'll have to wear black robes when you go to Hogwarts, 'cause that's the school uniform. Hogwarts is the school where witches and wizards go to learn magic in Britain. Other countries have different schools. And you should learn to fly on a broom, 'cause it's fun. But you don't need the cat or warts or look ugly. An owl's a better pet. They deliver letters."

"What about me and Mia?" asked Diana.

"Have you done anything strange?"

Diana frowned, then said, "I once made my blocks float to me. And when a boy teased me, I think I made his pants fall down without me touching them."

"Agatha had those black circles appear round her eyes earlier," said Hermione thoughtfully. "And there was the time when I ac'dent'ly broke Mum's favorite dish and it repaired itself."

"Then you're witches too, Mia and Di," said Alex. "But don't go telling everyone. Muggles aren't s'posed to know about magic 'cept the ones I told you about."

"Then why did you tell us, Alex?" asked Hermione. "You didn't know we were witches 'til after we told you 'bout the stuff we did."

"I forgot." Suddenly there was a loud pop and a tiny creature, with bat-like ears, large eyes almost the size of tennis balls, and dressed in a ragged pillowcase, appeared. "Master Alex!" he exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. "Master Carrow is looking for you! Farra is taking you home before Master Carrow finds out you is leaving the house."

Alex sighed. "Great, Father wants me. This is Farra, a house-elf. He works for my family. Come to the park tomorrow afternoon and I'll try to met you three again and tell you some more 'bout the wizarding world. Let's go, Farra. And don't tell Father or anyone else 'bout my being here and talking with these girls."

Farra nodded and grabbed Alex's hand. With a crack, the two disappeared.

The three girls exchanged looks and then went back to the Granger home to discuss what had happened in the park. While Alex seemed to be a nice boy, they weren't quite sure if they believed him about the wizarding world, though they had to admit that they'd done strange things that could only be magical in nature. Finally they spoke with Aunt Petunia when she returned from work. She confirmed what Alex had said and gave some details on deaths of Emily's parents.

Since Aunt Petunia wasn't the lying type, Emily believed her and Diana and Hermione did the same. They promised not to tell anyone else about it, and were given permission to spend time with Alex and learn more about the wizarding world. Aunt Petunia also said that she would speak with the Drs. Granger about it and inform them that Hermione seemed to be a witch.

Author's note: As you may have guessed, Alex is the son of Amycus Carrow. His mother died soon after he was born, though, and he's being brought up by his father and grandparents. He doesn't share their views on Muggles and Muggleborns, however, and likes to sneak out of the house with the help of Farra to play in the park. Whenever Alex goes to the park, he has Farra transfigure his robes into Muggle clothing.


	4. Chapter 4

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you enjoy this update.

The friendship with Alex blossomed from that first afternoon when they'd met him. The boy was younger than Hermione and older than Emily and Diana, his birthday being January 28th. He enjoyed reading, was rather smart, and had a bit of a rebellious streak in him. The second afternoon, after explaining a bit more about house-elves and confirming that creatures like dragons, unicorns, and merpeople existed, told all he knew about Hogwarts and concluded, "I definitely don't want to get Sorted into Slytherin. The Dark Lord was in that house, plus my family and their friends. 'Cept for Great-Aunt Lavinia. Grandfather said she was disgrace to the family for getting sorted into Gryffindor and then marrying a Weasley and doesn't ack-ack-recognize his sister any more. The Weasleys are a pureblood family, but they're poor and considered Muggle-lovers." Then he explained about purebloods and halfbloods and how some wizards didn't like Muggles and Muggleborns and wanted to keep it to just wizarding families.

After that, Farra appeared to take Alex home, but they arranged to meet again on Saturday. When Saturday came, Alex was there with three books. One was _Hogwarts, a History_, a second on wizarding society, and the third a book of wizarding stories. "Here. You guys can read them and return them to me once you're done. Today, why don't you tell me 'bout the Muggle world? Else I won't learn 'bout it 'til I go to Hogwarts, and even then I still have to wait 'til my third year, 'cause you can't take Muggle Studies in your first and second years."

"Okay," said Emily agreeably. The three girls did their best to explain the things Muggles had invented or used to compensate for magic, like electricty, telephones, and airplanes.

The next visit, the girls lent Alex a couple of Muggle books. He thanked them and summoned Farra. "Could you please take these books to my room and hide them for me? Don't tell anyone about it 'cept for me." The house-elf nodded and did so. Alex sighed. "I'm so glad that I met you three. Before that, Farra was my only friend. And I have to be careful, 'cause he's s'posed to be a servant and I'm not s'posed to be nice to him or anything. But I can never treat Farra the way Draco treats Dobby." He made a face and explained, "Draco Malfoy is a boy my age and we're s'posed to be friends. But I can't stand him. Dobby is the Malfoy family house-elf and is treated badly. At least I'm nice to Farra and our other elf, Adelly, and Father just ignores them 'cept to give orders. But Dobby gets beaten and stuff, and he has to punish himself any time he does something that the Malfoys won't like."

"That's horrible!" exclaimed Hermione. "How can house-elves be treated that way?"

Alex shrugged. "No clue. The only way Dobby can escape it is if the Malfoys set him free, and that's not going to happen. A house-elf needs to be given clothes, even if it's just a sock, to be set free. I'd set Farra and Adelly free, but they don't want clothes and Father would just get mad at me when he found out. At least Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle aren't that mean to their family house-elves. But maybe that's just 'cause they're too stupid. I'm s'posed to be friends with them too, but they don't know much and just do what Draco says mostly."

Emily grimaced and Diana said, "I don't blame you for not liking them, Alex. I'm glad we're your friends and that you don't mind being friends with girls."

"I'm s'posed to be friends with girls too," replied Alex. "But you three are so much nicer than Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode. Pansy has a face like a dog and is mean like Draco. Millicent's big like Crabbe and Goyle and isn't that smart, either. Daphne Greengrass is smart and nicer, but she agrees with her family that purebloods are the best and hates Muggles and Muggleborns, so I don't like her much. But she's the only person I can stand when all of us pureblood kids get together."

When the weather grew too cold for them to spend too much time outside, the visits temporarily stopped. However, Alex had an owl named Emerald and so the four friends kept in touch with letters and exchanged magical and Muggle books.

The years passed and one day it was Diana's eleventh birthday. Emerald flew in the kitchen window at breakfast and left a brightly wrapped red package on the table. Diana opened it to find a birthday card, a box of wizarding sweets, and a red-covered diary from Alex. Aunt Petunia frowned at the sweets, but merely said, "Don't eat them all at once and make sure you brush you teeth after when you do." Ever since working for the Grangers, she was more concerned about good dental care.

After breakfast, the Grangers came over with their presents, which were a watch and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Diana thanked her and then opened the rest of her presents. From her mother was a white and blue bicycle, Diana's old one being too small, and an alexanderite pendant (her birthstone) on a gold chain. From Emily was the book _The Hobbit_ and a bottle of pink nail polish.

That was followed by an outing, for every year, on Emily's and Diana's birthdays, Aunt Petunia would take the girls out somewhere to celebrate for the day. Diana, after consulting with Emily and Hermione, decided that she wanted to go to the zoo.

At the gate, the girls were allowed to get ice cream cones, as it was a special occasion. Emily picked strawberry, Diana chocolate, and Hermione vanilla. After that, the three, with Aunt Petunia keeping an eye on them, roamed about the zoo, examining all the animals there. They had lunch in the zoo restaurant and then went to the reptile house. Diana went off to examine a python and Hermione stopped at the exhibit of an alligator. Emily paused at the exhibit of an apparently sleeping boa constrictor and was very shocked when it opened its eyes and seemed to wink at her. She looked down at the plate and saw that though the species was from Brazil, this particular snake had been bred in the zoo.

"How sad," she muttered, looking up at the boa constrictor. "You've never seen Brazil, only this part of the zoo." Just then, someone shoved into her. She fell to the ground and looked up to see one of the boys from school. He gave her a nasty grin before turning to look at the snake. Furious, she glared at him. Suddenly a scream rent the relative silence. More screams followed as it became apparent that the glass housing the exhibit had vanished and the boa constrictor was now on the loose. As it passed Emily, she could have sworn she heard a hissing voice say, "Brazil, here I come. Thankssss, amiga."

She was rather chargrined at the fact that she seemed to have let her temper get the best of her and caused magic to happen again. True, it was accidental, but she should have better control. After all, for the past two years, she, along with Emily, Alex, and Hermione, had enough control of their magic to do it delibrately, though it was mainly minor things like making a flower open and close or changing the color of an item of clothing.

When things had quieted down somewhat (though one of the zookeepers kept asking, "Where did the glass go?") Aunt Petunia collected Emily, an unreadable look on her face. As they headed for the car, Diana and Hermione exchanged significant looks and then turned to Emily.

"Did you lose control again?" asked Hermione. "The only way the glass could have vanished is through magic, and since you were right next to that exhibit, logic says you're responsible. Since you would never do something like that on purpose, it has to be accidental."

Emily nodded. "Darryl Parker pushed me and I got mad. The next thing I knew, the glass was gone and the boa constrictor escaped." She decided not to mention the hissing voice she had heard. It might have been her imagination, unless the wizarding world had people that had the ability to understand snakes, or maybe just boa constrictors, and she was one of them.

Aunt Petunia sighed. "Em, you really need to not let something like a school bully pushing you get so upset. What if you had done something that required the Ministry of Magic to step in, fix things, and then make everyone there, except us, forget what happened?"

"Sorry, Aunt Petunia," said Emily in a small voice. "I'll try to keep my temper."

"All right, dear. I know you didn't mean to lose control and do accidental magic. Let's just forget this incident ever happened. It's a good thing that you three will be attending Hogwarts this year and there won't be much chance of similar incidents in the future."

A week before Emily's eleventh birthday, the Hogwarts letters arrived. Professor McGonagall came by to the Grangers' to explain about the wizarding world, but left shortly afterward when Hermione's parents revealed that they already knew about it from Petunia Evans. She was slightly surprised, for while she was aware that the Dursleys had divorced, Petunia and Diana went by 'Evans', and they and Emily had moved, she hadn't known that the girls were friends with Hermione and that the Grangers had been told about magic.

Emily decided that for her birthday outing, she wanted to go to Diagon Alley and get the school supplies. Alex arranged to go then as well, for while he couldn't hang out with the girls, he would be able to at least see them and exchange waves or a greeting when his father wasn't looking. The day before the trip, however, het got good news, which he shared at the secret visit in the park.

"Father discovered that he's going to busy tomorrow, so I get to go to Diagon Alley by myself! Well, not exactly, because Farra is going to come with me. But nobody else will be with me, so I can spend tomorrow with you guys."

The girls were delighted with this news, Emily in particular, for ever since becoming friends with Alex, she had wanted to celebrate at least one birthday with him present, and not just get a card and gift from him. She had thought that it might never happen, at least not until they graduated Hogwarts and Alex could leave home. Hermione and Diana didn't have to worry, for their birthdays took place toward the beginning and end of the Hogwarts school term and Alex would be there to celebrate with them.

That night, Emily went to bed, but couldn't sleep for quite some time, for she was excited about the trip to Diagon Alley and properly being part of the wizarding world at last.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's note: To Shinigami, Emily's house isn't quite decided yet, though I'm leaning toward Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. It's a toss-up between her bravery and her intelligence and love of books. I like the house unity idea and might go for it. However, that will end up with one or two surprising Sortings. Don't worry about Neville and Luna. I have every intention of having them be friends with Emily's group. Besides, it was hinted in the first chapter that Emily and Neville would become friends. Snape's reaction to Emily is going to be different from the books, since she looks exactly like Lily except for the glasses and ears. I won't go into further detail. I hope everyone enjoys their holidays.

In the morning, the Grangers, Evanses, and Emily went to London. After a bit of prompting from Aunt Petunia, Emily spotted a grubby-looking place that was the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione then grabbed her parents' hands and pointed out the pub to them, for Muggles couldn't see it otherwise. Once inside, Aunt Petunia asked Tom, the barman, for help to get into Diagon Alley. Unfortunately, he spotted Emily and after peering closely at her, gasped. "Good Lord, is this - can this be -?"

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.  
"Bless my soul," whispered the old barman. "Emily Potter ... what an honor."

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed towards Emily and seized her hand, tears in his eyes.  
"Welcome back, Miss Potter, welcome back."

Emily didn't know what to say. Everyone was looking at her. An old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Then there was a great scraping of chairs and, next moment, Emily found herself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Doris Crockford, Miss Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."

"So proud, Miss Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand - I'm all of a flutter."

"Delighted, Miss Potter, just can't tell you. Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

A pale, young man that stuttered also came forward and introduced himself as Professor Quirrell, the Defence Against Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, adding that he was in Diagon Alley to pick up a book on vampires. A giant of a man then enveloped Emily in a hug and said that he was Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts. He had known Lily and James Potter quite well and was the one that had brought Emily to her aunt and uncle. He added that he was at Diagon Alley on important business for Professor Dumbledore.

Finally, with Hagrid's help, Emily was able to escape the crowd in order to get her supplies. Doris Crockford, who had shaken Emily's hand several times, did so one last time, and then the Grangers, Evanses, and Emily followed Hagrid out of the Leaky Cauldron and to the back. After showing the brick in the wall to tap, Hagrid tapped it three times with the pink umbrella he was carrying. It quivered - it wriggled - in the middle, a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

They went through and headed for a snowy-white building that towered over the other little shops, which was the wizarding bank, Gringotts. Emily couldn't help gaping at the goblin standing by the doors, even though Alex had told her that goblins ran Gringotts and she had read about them. When they were almost there, a green-robed figure ran down the stairs and skidded to a stop in front of Hermione, barely managing to keep from colliding with her. "Great, you're here!" He threw his arms around her in an exhuberent hug and then hugged Emily and Diana.

When he was done, he apparently remembered his manners, for he quickly straightened his robes and with a slight bow, said politely, "Hello, Ms. Evans and Mr. and Mrs. Granger. How are you?"

Aunt Petunia smiled. "We're fine, Alex. It's nice to see you." The adults had met him once, and Hermione's parents had told him not to call them 'Dr. Granger' in order to avoid confusion as to which one he was referring to.

Hagrid introduced himself and Alex said, "It's a pleasure to meet you. Since my father doesn't like you, I'm sure I'll get along well with you. Father is Amycus Carrow, by the way."

Hagrid chuckled. "Well, most of teh Slytherin students didn' care much for me, anyway. Since you're nothin' like yer father, I agree that we'll probably get along great." He then handed Emily the key to her vault, after hunting through his many coat pockets, and after excused himself to run his errand for Dumbledore.

The Grangers went to a counter to exchange pounds into Galleons and Sickles. Aunt Petunia did the same, but also let the girls go with a goblin named Griphook to the Potter vault and allowed Emily to withdraw some of the money in it for her spending money. Alex joined the girls and after Emily's vault, went to his, which had been set up for him when he was born and withdrew some money as well.

After that, they rode the cart back up and left the bank. In Flourish and Blotts, Hermione had to be talked out of buying all the books she wanted for extra reading. Diana reminded her that she and Emily were also getting a few extra books and could borrow them when they were done. Alex added, "And the Hogwarts library has most of the books here and you can check them out, Mia. If they don't have a book, or you're not allowed access to it, my family's library probably has it and I'll lend it to you."

At the Apothecary, the group ran into a round-faced boy with brown hair and eyes and a formidable looking eldery lady that apparently was his grandmother. They recognized Emily and the boy nervously introduced himself as Neville Longbottom. His grandmother said that she was Augusta Longbottom and that her grandson was starting Hogwarts. Diana, Hermione, and Alex introduced themselves while Emily frowned slightly. Aunt Petunia, when telling about her sister, had shown a letter telling about the birth of her niece. One line had mentioned how Lily's friend, Alice Longbottom, had gone into labour the same day, but had ended up having her son the day, or rather a few hours before Lily had Emily.

"Is your mother Alice Longbottom, Neville?" Emily asked.

A sad expression briefly crossed Neville's face before he nodded and asked, "Why do you ask, Emily?"

"She was mentioned in a letter that my mum wrote to Aunt Petunia, how I was born the day after you were, though both our mothers had gone into labour at almost the same time. From the letter, I gather they were friends. I think it'd be great if their only children were friends as well."

Neville brightened immensely. "You want to be friends with me? But you're famous and all, and I'm just ordinary."

"Nonsense," said Emily. "I think you have the qualities of a great friend, like Di and Alex and Mia. I'm sure my parents would approve, since they were friends with yours and Mum did write in the letter that she hopes you and I will become friends someday."

"Okay," said Neville, glancing at his grandmother, who smiled approvingly. Mrs. Longbottom obviously had no objection to her grandson being friends with the Girl-Who-Lived and her friends.

The Longbottoms went with the group to Madam Malkin's for robes. There they came across a red-haired family, which from Alex's description, Emily gathered to be the Weasleys. The oldest boy was being measured for new robes. His twin brothers looked annoyed and when they asked why Percy got new robes, their mother responded that it was because he had been made prefect. The only girl in the family, who also appeared to be the youngest, saw Emily's scar and let out a squeal of delight. She got the attention of the rest of her family and introductions were made. The fourth and youngest boy, Ron, was just starting Hogwarts. The twins, Fred and George, were going to be third years, while Ginny, the girl was ten and wouldn't start Hogwarts until next year.

"Ron, I definitely want to be your friend," said Alex with a slightly wicked grin. "It would annoy my father to no end that I was friends with a Weasley. Though you seem to be a nice person and someone I'd want for a friend, anyway, regardless of your name."

When everyone that was buying robes had been measured, the Weasleys had to leave, but Ron and Ginny promised to write so the group of kids could get to know each other better. After a stop to buy parchment, ink, and quills, the Longbottoms left, but Neville promised to write.

On the way to Ollivanders for wands, Hagrid stopped them and handed Emily his birthday present to her, a beautiful snowy owl in a cage. She thanked him sincerely.

At the wand shop, Mr. Ollivander was a somewhat creepy old man with silvery eyes. He apparently remembered every wand he had ever sold, for he told Emily about the wands her parents had bought, plus the one that had given her the scar on her forehead. Finally was the process of finding the perfect wand. It took so long for Emily to find hers that Alex, Diana, and Hermione began trying the ones she discarded to save time. Hermione's was vine wood with dragon heartstring core, Alex's rowan with the same core as Hermione's, and Diana's was oak with unicorn hair core. After trying almost every wand in the shop, Emily ended up with holly with phoenix feather core.

When the prefect wand had finally chose her, Ollivander revealed that the phoenix that gave a feather for her wand had also given one for another wand. That wand, the brother one, was responsible for Emily's scar. She couldn't help shuddering and the other three exchanged looks.

Finally Farra appeared and magically transported all the things Alex had bought home. The group had lunch in the Leaky Cauldron, in a private room so Emily wouldn't have to be fussed over by everyone else in the pub.

When it was over, Alex handed her a present wrapped in green and gold. She opened it to find a card, box of sweets, and a diary with emerald covers that matched her eyes. "Happy birthday, Emily." He then glanced at his watch and added, "I'd better Floo home now. Father will be home soon and if I'm not there when he's back, he'll ask why I took so long to buy my school things. See you guys later. Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Granger and Ms. Evans." With that, he went to use one of the fireplaces to Floo home.

The Evanses, Emily, and the Grangers drove back home then. On the way, the three girls discussed names for Emily's owl and in the end decided on Hedwig, from a famous witch mentioned in the book _A History of Magic._


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: I hope my readers enjoy this chapter. There are some very unexpected Sortings, since I liked the suggestion a reviewer made of having unity between houses.

September the first arrived and Aunt Petunia drove Emily and Diana to King's Cross Station in London so they could take the Hogwarts Express to school. The Grangers arrived the same time they did and they proceeded to make their way to the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten to get to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Muggles could get on the Platform if they were holding on to a witch or wizard, fortunately.

Neville was already on the Platform, telling his grandmother that his toad was gone. Mrs. Longbottom sighed. "Not again, Neville." Diana spotted a toad next to someone's trunk and was able to grab it. "Is this your toad, Neville?" she asked.

"Trevor!" exclaimed Neville joyfully, taking the toad. "Thanks, Di."

The Weasleys appeared and Ron quickly joined them, looking slightly annoyed. "Fred and George were being annoying, as usual." Then he brightened as he greeted everyone. Trunks were loaded on the train and everyone boarded.

"Have a good time at Hogwarts, dears," said Aunt Petunia, a wistful look on her face. "Don't misbehave, do the best you can in classes, and enjoy yourselves. I'll see you again at Christmas." She hugged Diana and Emily, then Hermione.

When the train began moving, Ginny ran after it, half laughing, half crying, until it gathered too much speed. Then she fell back and waved.

The very last compartment was empty and the five of them settled in it. A couple of minutes later, Alex turned up, dragging his trunk behind him and carrying a cage containing his owl, Emerald. As he settled in, he said, "That Draco Malfoy tried to get me to join him and Crabbe and Goyle in their compartment. I told him that I wasn't going to sit with an 'insufferable, stuck-up, spoiled git' and his 'two stupid, brainless lackeys.' Malfoy wasn't at all happy, especially when I added that I had always thought of them like that and had only tolerated them before because Father had forced me to. Finally I said that I was sitting with my true friends and that Muggleborns and people like the Weasleys were better than them."

The girls exchanged grins. "Your father is going to throw a fit when you get Sorted into Gryffindor," said Diana.

"Or Hufflepuff," added Alex. "That house is often overlooked by the others and many consider them to be pushovers, when they're really not and it's a great house. But families like mine that've traditionally been in Slytherin think being in Hufflepuff is about as bad as being in Gryffindor. Ravenclaw's accepted, though not preferred, because it shows that you're really smart. Since I don't particularly care to follow family tradition or be accepted, I want to get Sorted into Hufflepuff or Gryffindow."

Hermione tilted her head slightly. "I think you're more of a Gryffindor, since you're something of a rebel, Alex."

The discussion then turned to what houses the rest of them wanted to be in. At half-past twelve, a smiling witch came by, asking if they wanted anything from the trolley she was pushing. Ron turned red and muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. The others got to their feet and went out to the hall to buy some snacks. Between the five of them, they got some of everything.

Back in the compartment, Ron made a face over his sandwiches, which were corned beef, which he didn't like. Instantly, the others offered to share their snacks. He made a protest, which the others ignored, and Emily dumped two pasties, three chocolate frogs, and a box of Every Flavor Beans in his lap.

A few hours passed and the compartment door opened. Three boys, whom Emily recognized from Alex's description to be Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle walked in. "Everyone's been saying that Emily Potter's on the train," said Malfoy. "So it's you." Then he spotted Alex and continued, "And so this is where you've been sitting, Alex. How do you know the Girl-Who-Lived?"

"I happen to live in the same town as Emily and met her, Malfoy," answered Alex levelly. "We're best friends, in fact. Along with her cousin Diana Evans and their friend from school, Hermione Granger." He gestured at each girl as he said their names and added, "And since meeting Neville Longbottom and Ron Weasley in Diagon Alley, there's two more that I think will join my group of best friends. Which you and your lackeys are not a part of. Ron, who's from a family that some consider to be blood traitors, and Di and Mia, who are Muggleborn, are better people than you."

"You're friends with two Mudbloods?" asked Malfoy incredulously.

Ron jumped up angrily, but before he could say a word, Neville burst out, "Don't call Mia and Di that, Malfoy!"

Malfoy sneered at him. "I'll call them what I want. Anyway, Emily Potter, I wanted to be your friend." He held out his hand.

Emily looked at it coolly, then said icily, "If you think that I'm going to be friends with you after you just insulted my cousin and my best friend since I was five, you're mistaken. Now please leave before I lose my temper and punch you in the nose."

"And I don't think you want all of Hogwarts to know about a certain incident when you were seven," added Alex, smirking.

A pink tinge appeared in Malfoy's cheeks and he resentfully left, Crabbe and Goyle following him. When they were gone, Alex told the others about the incident he had been referring to, adding that it and several other incidents he'd witnessed were good blackmail material. If Malfoy bothered them too much, Alex would threaten to tell the whole of Hogwarts about them to get him to leave them alone.

A couple more hours passed and the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station. The older students headed for carriages that would take them up to the school, while Hagrid called all the first years to him, for they would be crossing the lake in boats. It was four to a boat. Emily, Diana, Mia, and a red-haired girl who said that her name was Susan Bones got in one boat. Alex, Ron, Neville, and a sandy-haired boy got in another. Hagrid clambered into the lead boat and soon they were off.

All the first years stared at the castle that was Hogwarts in awe. When they reached the other side of the lake, Hagrid led the way up a path to the front doors. He knocked and Professor McGonagall met them. After giving a speech about the four houses and the Sorting, the first-years were shown to a room next to the Great Hall. There was nervous silence over the upcoming Sorting.

A soft shriek interrupted the silence minutes later and Emily turned to see about twenty ghosts float through the wall, arguing. A ghost in ruff and tights was first to notice the new students and the Fat Friar cheerfully said that he hoped to see them in Hufflepuff, his old house. Professor McGonagall returned then and escorted the first-years into the Great Hall.

A stool and a rather patched and frayed hat was set in front of the staff table. After a moment's silence, the hat began to sing a long song about the four houses and their qualities. When it was done, there was much applause. Professor McGonagall unrolled a scroll and called the name of the first student on the list, Hannah Abbott. Hannah sat on the stool and placed the Sorting Hat on her head. There was a moment's pause and then the Hat called out, "HUFFLEPUFF!" The Hufflepuff table clapped as she went to join them.

Next was Susan Bones and she was also Sorted into Hufflepuff. She scuttled off to join Hannah. Third was Terry Boot and he was sorted into Ravenclaw. The next person, Mandy Brocklehurst, was also Sorted into Ravenclaw, but Lavender Brown became the first Gryffindor. The Gryffindor table clapped enthusiastically and the Weasley twins catcalled.

After Lavender was Millicent Bulstrode, who looked exactly like how Alex described her. Not to Emily's surprise, Millicent was sorted into Slytherin. Alex Carrow was the next name called. He walked up to the stool with a determined look on his face and placed the Sorting Hat on his head.

"Hmmm," said a voice in his head. "Rather tricky. You're a Carrow, and would be good for Slytherin."

_Don't you dare put me in Slytherin!_ Alex thought back fiercely. _If you do, I'll-I'll-I'll set you on fire!_

The Hat chuckled. "Don't worry, you're not exactly Slytherin material. You have some of the cunning, but not that much of ambition. Ravenclaw would be the better choice, as you do have brains and like reading."

_I would prefer being in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff_, Alex silently said.

"Well, you certainly have the qualities of a Gryffindor. You're a brave and noble person, and something of a rebel. You could fit in Hufflepuff, too, since you're loyal to your friends and don't mind working hard. So where shall I place you?"

_Whichever house is guarenteed to annoy my family more,_ responded Alex.

"Well, that solves things. And you are a rebel. So I shall Sort you into - GRYFFINDOR!" The last word was shouted out for everyone to hear. Their was a shocked silence from the Slytherin table. Several students from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff also looked shocked that a Carrow hadn't gone to Slytherin. The Gryffindor table clapped loudly and Fred thumped Alex onthe ground as he sat down.

The next person was Stephan Cornfoot, who was Sorted into Ravenclaw, and the Sorting progressed. After Kevin Entwhistle (Ravenclaw) was Sorted, Diana Evans was called up. She calmly made her way to the stool, showing no sign of nervousness. Then again, in front of other people (besides her family and closest friends), she rarely showed any emotion beyond a calm expression.

_Hello, Mr. Sorting Hat,_ she thought politely. _I would prefer being in Gryffindor with Alex, but I have no objection to any other house. Though it would be best that I wasn't in Slytherin, seeing as I'm Muggleborn and the Founder of the house would have a fit if a Muggleborn got Sorted there._

"Well, you're certainly more polite than your friend," said the Hat with a chuckle. "He threatened to set me on fire if I Sorted him in Slytherin. You're a rather tough person and a rebel in your own way, Miss Evans. Hogwarts could use some change. So I'm putting you in - SLYTHERIN!"

Diana blinked in surprise at this announcement. Slytherin was the last house she expected to be Sorted into, considering the fact that she was Muggleborn. She had thought herself to be a more likely candidate for Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. However, the Sorting Hat did have a point when it said that Hogwarts could use some change. A Muggleborn in Slytherin would certainly change things, for they were very rare, if not non-existant. As she took off the Hat and made her way her to the Slytherin table, she wondered what Malfoy would do. Alex had told him that she was Muggleborn, and while Malfoy hadn't been sorted yet, it was a given that he'd be in Slytherin. He would no doubt try to her life miserable, unless she used the blackmail material Alex had told her, and get the other Slytherins that thought the way he did to join him.

Needless to say, the rest of the sextet were shocked by Diana's unexpected Sorting. Ron, who didn't think much of Slytherins, would have been repulsed except for the fact that Diana was Muggleborn and a nice person. Since he couldn't grasp the concept of a Muggleborn witch or wizard becoming evil, or at least a follower of Voldemort, no matter what the house, he just stood there wondering why the hat put her in Slytherin. Alex was beginning to regret not having the Sorting Hat place him in Slytherin. Diana could use a friend in the same house, one that wouldn't look down on her and probably bully her for being Muggleborn. And now that he thought about it, he could have become one of the few decent Slytherins and helped change the reputation of the house.

Emily and Hermione exchanged looks, wondering about it as Justin Finch-Fletchley went up to be Sorted. They barely noticed as seconds later he was declared a Hufflepuff. Hermione was startled out of her thoughts when, after Gregory Goyle (Slytherin), her name was called. She slowly made her way to the stool.

_Why did you put Diana in Slytherin?_ she demanded the Hat silently.

"I put her there because she has some of the qualities Salazar Slytherin admired in his students, there hasn't been a Muggleborn in Slytherin since sixty-three years ago and he lied about his parentage, and Hogwarts needs a change," answered the Sorting Hat. "Miss Evans will help change things for the better. If your intelligence and bravery didn't overshadow your ambition, I'd put you in Slytherin for the same reason. As things stand, you're the most likely candidate for Gryffindor or Ravenclaw and I'm not sure which to pick."

_Either one is fine with me, Mr. Sorting Hat_, thought Hermione.

"All right then." There was a few seconds' pause as the Sorting Hat debated with itself before shouting out, "RAVENCLAW!" With a pleased smile on her face, Hermione took off the hat and went to sit at the Ravenclaw table admist the applause. One of the prefects shook her hand.

A few more names later, Neville Longbottom was called up. He tripped on the way to be Sorted, and sat on the stool for an entire minute. The Hat obviously had rather a hard time deciding if he was better suited for Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Neville wasn't helping very much with the decision, for while he had a preference for Gryffindor, he honestly didn't mind being Hufflepuff and thought he was better suited for that house. The Hat agreed on that point, but decided it didn't want to go for the obvious choice. In the end, the Hat declared him a Gryffindor and Neville ran off to sit next to Alex.

As expected, Draco Malfoy was Sorted to Slytherin. After Sally-Ann Perk's Sorting, Emily Potter was called up. There were instantly whispers, which she paid little attention to as she sat down and placed the Hat on her head.

"Hmm," said a small voice in her ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting ... So where shall I put you?"

After the unexpected Sortings of four of her friends (though Alex's was only unexpected to the Slytherins and anyone else that thought that as a Carrow he would be in Slytherin and Hermione and Neville had qualities of the respective houses they'd gone to), Emily decided that she wanted her Sorting to be different as well. The first choice that came to mind was Hufflepuff. That was the house most overlooked by the others, was considered by some to be pushovers and the leftovers the other houses that didn't take, and hadn't had any glory for at least a century or two.

_I think Hufflepuff would be the best choice, sir,_ she thought politely. _Could you please Sort me there?_

The Hat saw her line of thought and chuckled. "You are quite right, Miss Potter. Hufflepuff would be a very different choice. All right then, I shall do as you request. Everyone's going to get a shock when I place you in - HUFFLEPUFF!"

There was complete and utter silence from everyone. A few seconds later, as Emily took of the Hat, the Hufflepuff table recovered from their shock to cheer and clap excitedly. The famous Girl-Who-Lived had actually been Sorted into their house and they were very proud of the fact. Granted, it was unexpected, for everyone thought she would end up in Gryffindor. The only other choice that would have been as shocking was Slytherin.

A pleased expression on her face, Emily took a seat at the Hufflepuff table next to Susan Bones and a first-year boy named Ernie Macmillian. Several of the older students shook her hand.

There were only four people left to be Sorted. Dean Thomas went to Gryffindor, Lisa Turpin to Ravenclaw, and after that was Ron's turn. He looked rather green as he placed the Hat on his head and gave a start when it suggested that he go to Slytherin.

_But the Weasleys have been in Gryffindors for generations!_ he protested. _And what will my family think if I go to Slytherin?_

"Your family will support you," said the Hat firmly. "Besides, you've got some of the qualities of Slytherin. Mainly ambition in that you want to step from the shadows of your older brothers and prove your own worth. You can join your friends in unexpected Sortings."

Ron reflected for several seconds and decided that perhaps being in Slytherin had merits. He could join Diana and then she wouldn't be alone in that house, without a friend. Also, he could become one of the few nice Slytherins (his parents had said that their Potions professor had been a decent Slytherin that didn't care about blood purity, only talent and connections) and help change the reputation of the house. With those thoughts, he admitted,_ I guess it wouldn't be that bad being in Slytherin. I can keep Diana company_.

"Good, I'm glad you see things my way, Mr. Weasley. All right then, you shall go to - SLYTHERIN!"

For a second time there was complete silence as everyone realized that a Weasley had been Sorted into Slytherin. Ron slowly took off the Hat and made his way to the Slytherin table. The silence was finally broken as Diana began clapping enthusiastically and was quickly joined by Emily, Neville, Hermione, and Alex. As Ron sat down next to Diana, he glanced at the Gryffindor table and saw Fred and George join in the clapping. Apparently the twins had no objection to his Sorting and were supporting him, somewhat to his surprise. Percy, on the other hand, was thunderstruck, and the expression was soon replaced by one of mild disgust.

As Ron never really like Percy, (though he loved him in a he's-my-brother-and-I-have-to sort of way), he wasn't that bothered. Ron just hoped that his parents and Ginny would be as accepting as the twins.

The last person, Blaise Zabini, was Sorted to Slytherin also and then Dumbledore stood up. After he said "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!", food appeared on the tables and the feast began.

The other Hufflepuffs were quite surprised when Emily cheerfully admitted that she had asked the Sorting Hat to place her in Hufflepuff. "But why?" asked a boy who introduced himself as Cedric Diggory. "Everyone that knows about you expected you to be in Gryffindor."

"My cousin, who's Muggleborn, was Sorted into Slytherin, and Alex Carrow, who's one of my best friends, got in Gryffindor. And Neville Longbottom, who at first glance looks like Hufflepuff material got in Gryffindor too. So I decided that I wanted an unexpected Sorting as well. Hufflepuff was the first house that came to mind. I think it's just as great a house as Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, but there are witches and wizards that don't. And I think it's about time that Hufflepuff got some of its glory back. That's why."

"Well, we're glad that you thought so," said a girl named Heidi Macavoy. "You'll be a good addition to our house."

At the Slytherin table, the Slytherins were either pointedly ignoring Diana (Draco had started telling people that she was Muggleborn right after he'd joined the table) and Ron or saying uncomplimentary things about them in lowered voices, but still loud enough for them to hear. Ron couldn't help turning red at the comments, but Diana said calmly, "Ignore those idiots. They're close-minded and not worthy of our attention."

Hermione had no difficulties at the Ravenclaw table, and Alex and Neville were enjoying themselves at the Gryffindor table.

When the remains of dessert had vanished, Professor Dumbledore got up and made his announcements. That was followed by the singing of the school song. When that was over, the students all went to bed. Emily and the rest of the Hufflepuff first years followed the two fifth year prefexts to the Hufflepuff common room, which was located near the kitchens.

The common room, which was filled with yellow hangings and fat armchairs and had little underground tunnels leading to the dormitories, all of which had perfectly round doors, like barrel tops. It reminded Emily of pictures she'd seen of badger setts. She followed the other first-year girls to their dormitory and got settled in. All the trunks had been brought up earlier and were now at the foot of the beds. After getting to know the four other girls better and discovering that Susan Bones was extremely nice and someone worth having for a friend, Emily brushed her teeth, changed into her nightgown, and went to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Kevin Entwhistle, Stephan Cornfoot, and Ling Su (Who will be mentioned in this chapter), are on a list J.K. Rowling drew up of students in Harry's year. According to the list, they are in Ravenclaw. The list isn't considered canon, since some of the students listed don't appear in the books and others have name changes. However, I decided to use the boys' names for the purposes of the Sorting and added Ling Su's name so that there could be five girls in Ravenclaw. As for Hiedi Macavoy of Hufflepuff, I found her name on list of students in Hufflepuff on the Harry Potter Wiki. Apparently she was a chaser on the Hufflepuff team when Cedric was the captain. Thanks also goes to Shinigami, who reminded me about Tracey Davis, as I'd completely forgotten about her.

Dumbledore sat in his office, thinking over the Sorting. First, Alex Carrow, who came from a family that was into the Dark Arts and had a father suspected to be a Death Eater, had gone to Gryffindor. That had come as a surprise, though Dumbledore was pleased that Alex didn't seem to be like the rest of his family. Second, Diana Evans, Emily's cousin and a Muggleborn, had gone to Slytherin, where she would be ostracized for not being pureblood or even a halfblood. Third, Neville Longbottom, whom seemed more like Hufflepuff material based on what Dumbledore had heard from Augusta Longbottom, had ended up in Gryffindor. Well, that was not a problem at all, and being in Gryffindor would bring out the hidden bravery and abilities the boy possessed, especially once he got some self-confidence. Fourth, Emily Potter, whom everyone expected to be in Gryffindor like her parents, had ended up in Hufflepuff. Not that there was anything wrong with that house, but it was as unexpected as Ron Weasley being in Slytherin. There had never been a Weasley in Slytherin before, the majority of them in Gryffindor, with a few in Ravenclaw.

"What was the Hat thinking when it made those decisions?" Dumbledore muttered to himself. "And after announcing Slytherin, I expected Mr. Weasley to protest it. Instead, he just looks thoughtful and goes quietly off to sit next to Miss Evans." He stood up and placed the Sorting Hat on his head, intending to question it and get some answers.

It merely chuckled when it read Dumbledore's thoughts and concerns. "Don't worry, Albus, I have my reasons and they're good ones. Yes, Alexander Carrow is a good person and nothing like his family, but I won't say anything more. Student-Sorting Hat confidentiality, you know. Neville Longbottom was rather difficult to place at first, but in the end I decided not to go by the Hufflepuff personality he gives off."

_But what about Emily Potter and her cousin Diana Evans?_ he asked silently. _And Ronald Weasley?_

"Hogwarts, especially Slytherin, needs some change. There are decent Slytherins, but there are so few of them that they haven't changed the bad reputation Slytherin has at all. Diana and Ronald can help change that. Again, I won't say anything more, because then I'd be revealing what exactly happened during the time I was Sorting them. As for Emily Potter, she could have been in Gryffindor. Or in Slytherin."

Dumbledore wasn't surprised that the Girl-Who-Lived could have been in Slytherin, for he suspected that when Voldemort tried to kill her, some of his powers transferred to her and therefore she would get some Slytherin qualities. That wasn't the point, though. _Well, why did you decide to Sort her in Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor or Slytherin?_ he asked.

"I didn't decide that," replied the Hat, surprised.

_You mean she decided to be in Hufflepuff and asked you to place her there?_ Dumbledore asked, startled.

"I'm not answering that, Albus Dumbledore," said the Sorting Hat severely. "That would break student-Sorting Hat confidentiality. You know I never tell anyone else what I read or 'hear' in the minds of students when I Sort them."

Dumbledore sighed and placed the Sorting Hat back on the shelf it normally occupied. Since it said that it wasn't the one who decided to Sort Emily in Hufflepuff, the only answer was that she had wanted to be in that house. But why? He thought that Emily might want to be in Slytherin to be with her cousin, or else in Ravenclaw with her friend Hermione Granger, if she decided on a house other than Gyrffindor.

Down in his office in the Dungeons, Severus Snape stared at the jars of Potions ingredients on the wall, deep in thought. How did a Muggleborn and a Weasley end up in Slytherin? And the Muggleborn was Emily Potter's cousin, no less. Speaking of the Girl-who-lived, why did she end up in Hufflepuff? Not that there was anything wrong with that house, but Hufflepuffs were considered pushovers by many others and often overlooked. Well, other than the one that had graduated last year. On the other hand, Nymphadora Tonks was not a person you would overlook, considering her clumsiness and all the changes she made to her appearance due to her being a Metamorphmagus. Snape winced, recalling certain accidents that had occurred during his classes with her due to her clumsiness.

Snape sighed and turned back to his thoughts on Emily. Other than the glasses, the girl had looked exactly like Lily did at age eleven. The only thing she seemed to have inherited from blasted James Potter was the eyesight. And that wasn't much, since the glasses automatically attracted attention to her vivid emerald-green eyes.

Well, Snape simply couldn't bring himself to hate Emily, unless she acted completely like her father. But considering that she had been Sorted into Hufflepuff of all places, her nature would probably be more like her mother. Most Hufflepuffs were not arrogant or cruel people. He sighed a second time and decided to go bed and worry about all this when he actually had his first class with the first-year Hufflepuffs.

Diana bid Ron good-night and went up to her dorm room. Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode were shooting her nasty looks. "How did you end up here, Mudblood?" Pansy demanded. "Polluting our good house. You should have joined the idiotic Gryffindors and Alex Carrow should have come here."

Diana chose to not take offence at the insult and said calmly, "The Sorting Hat thought that I would be best suited for Slytherin. And might I remind you that I had an aunt and uncle who were witch and wizard, and that my cousin is Emily Potter? So I wouldn't consider myself to be a 'Mudblood'. As for Alex, he had no desire to be in this house. He doesn't think like you, and loathes what Slytherin represents. His true friends, like me, wouldn't think any differently of him if he were Slytherin, but the rest of the school would automatically assume that he's evil."

"You don't belong here!" snapped Millicent. "We are going to make your life miserable and you'll demand a resorting."

"Well, I'm not," declared Daphne Greengrass, a frown on her face. "I've had some very interesting talks with Alex for the past two years and he made some things quite clear. Such as Muggles are still human, and Muggleborns are no less witches and wizards than purebloods." She looked directly at Diana and held out a hand. "Would you like to be friends, Diana? Since you happen to be friends with Alex, and he's a much nicer person than Draco, Vincent, Gregory, and even that Theodore Nott, I'll take it that you are a good and trustworthy person."

Diana, much surprised, took Daphne's hand and shook it. The fifth Slytherin girl, Tracey Davis, looked thoughtful. While her family didn't care for Muggleborns or Muggles, they had remained neutral in the was against Voldemort. Because of that neutrality, pureblood families like the Malfoys and Carrows didn't often associate with them, other than at Ministry functions and holiday parties. That was why Alex had never mentioned Tracey Davis to his friends, for he had never spent much time around her.

"Well, what do you think, Tracey?" demanded Pansy. "Are you going to join Daphne and become friends with the Mudblood, or are you going to side with me and Millicent?"

Tracey was about to declare that she was remaining neutral, like her family had been during the war, but changed her mind. Daphne had a point, and the few times that she'd been with Alex, he had been nicer than the other boys present. "I think I'm siding with Daphne and Diana," said Tracey. She smiled at the shocked look on Pansy's face and went to stand next to Diana.

"How dare you!" shrieked Pansy when she'd recovered from her shock. "She's a Mudblood and doesn't belong here!"

"Don't call Diana that!" Daphne said sharply. "Or I'll tell the rest of the school that you used to wet the bed."

Diana stifled a giggle and Tracey said coolly, "And I'll be happy to turn you into the pug your face so resembles, Pansy. I'm quite good at Transfiguration. And Millicent, don't bother even speaking. Anything you can come up with will be a waste of breath, considering that you're only slightly more intelligent than Crabbe and Goyle. Now, good-night. I'm going to get to know Diana Evans better."

"Me too," added Daphne. "And it's not because she's related to the Girl-Who-Lived, either." She gave Pansy and Millicent glares, knowing that they were probably thinking that.

The two girls looked outraged, but there wasn't much they could do. In the end, they just went to bed. Diana talked quietly with Tracey and Daphne and them found to be very nice girls. Daphne was as smart as Alex said, and that was likely the reason why he had been able to talk her into seeing things his way concerning Muggles and Muggleborns. After an hour, the three girls went to bed and Diana made a note to introduce Tracey and Daphne to Emily and the rest of her friends. She drifted off to sleep, wondering how Ron had fared with the other boys.

Malfoy, and by extension Crabbe and Goyle, were not at all pleased that Ron was in Slytherin. Theodore Nott had decided to remain neutral and ignored Ron, which was better than the snide comments and glares Malfoy was making. Blaise Zabini, on the other hand, was quite friendly to Ron, and after one of Malfoy's comments, had snapped, "The Weasleys are a pureblood family, so why don't you just shut up and accept Ron being here? It's not as if he's Muggleborn."

"Speaking of Muggleborns, how did one end up in Slytherin?" retorted Malfoy. "I don't care if she's Emily Potter's cousin, she's still a Mudblood and doesn't belong in Slytherin."

Ron was about to yell at him over the word 'Mudblood', but Blaise said coldly, "Don't use that word, Draco, and Diana Evans is here is because the Sorting Hat put here her. It doesn't make mistakes, so I'm willing to accept her. You did say that Alex is friends with her, and since I've gotten a favourable impression of him from the few times I've met him, I'm inclined to like Diana and prehaps even be friends with her."

Since Blaise did not seem to share the same views on Muggles and Muggleborns like most Slytherins, Ron was inclined to like him and even consider him for friend. "I'm glad you think that way, Blaise."

Blaise turned and smiled at him. "I don't judge people by blood and heritage, only by what kind of person they are, Ron. And so far, Draco's shown himself to be a stuck-up, intolerant git and Crabbe and Goyle as two idiots who can't think for themselves and just follow him."

Ron returned the smile and the two boys went off to one side to talk some more. After half an hour, they ended the conversation and went to bed, for they were starting to feel sleepy.

In the Gryffindor dorm, Neville and Alex chatted a bit with Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, who were quite nice boys, before going to bed. In the Ravenclaw dorm, Hermione was doing the same with her dormmates. Padma Patil was a quite brilliant person, like Hermione, and had a passion for reading equal to hers and Emily. Lisa Turpin, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Ling Su weren't quite as brilliant, but they were still very intelligent and Hermione liked them, though not as much as she did with her best friends. Though she was quite willing to put Padma and Ling in that category if they continued to be the wonderful people they were.

After while, the five Ravenclaw girls went to bed, and Hermione wondered a bit at the fact that the six friends had gone to four different houses and if that would mean that there could be inter-house unity, since they weren't going to give up the friendship just because they were separated by house. She fell asleep still wondering.


	8. Chapter 8

Emily went down to breakfast the next morning with Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott and chatted with them all throughout breakfast. Something about them reminded Emily of Diana and halfway through breakfast she decided to include the other girls in her group of friends. Emily made a note to introduce Susan and Hannah to the others after classes that day.

In the Slytherin table, Diana, Tracey, Daphne, Ron, and Blaise sat together at one end of the table, with an empty seat each between Tracey, Blaise, and the rest of the Slytherins. It was rather obvious that they wanted to have nothing to do with Diana. Some of them would accept Ron, because he was a pureblood even if his family were blood-traitors and poor, but didn't want to be near a Muggleborn.

Halfway through breakfast, Alex left the Gryffindor table and headed over to the Ravenclaw one. "Good morning, Hermione. Could you and anyone that you want to bring from your house go to the portrait of all four Founders that's on the fifth floor after classes today so we can all meet? Father told me that there's a room behind the portrait, but not very many students know about it. There's no password required to enter, but if we make it our permanent meeting spot, we or the Founders can make one up."

Hermione, somewhat surprised, nodded. "All right, Alex." As he went on to the Hufflepuff table, she turned to Padma and Ling and asked, "Do you want to come with me? You can meet my friends." Then she looked over at Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot, whom she had talked with last night at the feast and found them to be very nice boys who reminded her of Alex in the brains department. "You're welcome to come too, Terry and Anthony." The two boys exchanged looks and then said that they would come. Padma and Ling also said they would go.

At the Hufflepuff table, Alex told Emily the same thing he'd told Hermione. She nodded and then turned to Susan and Hannah. "Would you like to come with me, girls? I would like you to meet my friends."

"Sure!" exclaimed Hannah and Susan simultaneously.

Emily then considered the first-year boys. She had spoken with them last night at the feast, and out of the five, only Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Muggleborn, and Ernie Macmillan (a bit pompous, but still very nice) had captured her interest. Zacharais Smith had stared at her scar all throughout dinner and what conversation he made was boring, and the two other had been more interested in the fact she was the Girl-who-lived and didn't care what she was like as a person. With that, she decided that she wouldn't mind adding Justin and Ernie to her circle of friends, and immediately invited them to come with her to meet her friends, which they accepted.

At the Slytherin table, Alex passed along the message to Ron and Diana, who immediately asked Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey, who accepted at once. Alex, who had stuck around, grinned. "I'm glad that you see sense, Daphne. I knew you were smart and could be made to see reason concerning Muggleborns and Muggles. And the few times I've met you, Blaise and Tracey, I thought you two seemed nice. I'll be happy to include you as my friends, as Diana and Ron are doing. I'm going back to finish my breakfast, so I'll talk to you guys later."

Transfiguration, which was with the Ravenclaws, went quite well for Emily. Professor McGonagall, who was as strict as she looked, gave the class a stern talking to. After that, she turned her desk into a pig and back again. Everyone was quite impressed, but were disappointed to learn that they wouldn't learn something like that until much later. After taking a great deal of complicated notes, everyone was given a match and told to try to turn it into a needle. Out of the Hufflepuffs, only Emily and Ernie Macmillan were able to succeed. Professor McGonagall gave them a rare smile and five points each to Hufflepuff.

Of the Ravenclaws, Hermione was first to transfigure her match into a needle successfully and was awarded five points to Ravenclaw. Padma, Ling, and Anthony soon followed and were awarded a point each. The other students had no luck, though Terry had manged to make his match pointy and the thickness of a needle and Lisa and Susan had turned their matches silvery and pointy like a needle, but still made of wood.

Herbology, taught by Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff, was with the Gryffindors. Neville did very well in the class and Emily gathered that Herbology would be his forte. Unfortunately, it wasn't hers, at least the practical part anyway. She had never been good at gardening to begin with. However, she had no problem with learning the properties of all the various plants and fungi.

On the way to lunch, Emily, Susan, Hannah, Justin, and Ernie made a wrong turning and then tried to force their way through a locked door in hopes that it would be a way out. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the out-of-bounds third floor corridor, and when Filch caught them, refused to believe that they were lost. If Quirrell hadn't come along at that moment and rescued them, the five were sure that they'd have been given detention or been taken to Professor Sprout so points could be taken off.

The last class of the day was Defense Against Dark Arts, which turned out to be a disappointment. Quirrell's stuttering didn't help with his lecture at all, and his room smelled of garlic as he wanted to ward off a vampire he'd once fought and was afraid would come after him. The turban he was wearing he said was a gift from an African prince for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but when Justin eagerly asked how it had happened, Quirrell turned pink and quickly changed the subject. Therefore, nobody really believed him, and there was a funny smell around the turban, which the Weasley twins insisted was stuffed full of garlic so that Quirrell would be protected wherever he went.

After class was the meeting in the room behind the Founders' portrait. The Founders greeted the first years and Salazar Slytherin showed no anger that there was a Muggleborn in his house. After centuries of being a portrait, his views on Muggleborns had changed and he no longer wanted to keep magical learning to purebloods exclusively.

The room itself was bright and cheerful, with banners on the walls representing all four houses. There were seven cases full of books, a few shelves with magical instruments, a long table with twenty chairs, four smaller round tables with six chairs each, and an empty square area with a few fat cushions around it.

After looking around the room and deciding that they liked it, the twenty of them sat down at the large table. Alex and Neville had brought Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, and Marcella Horowitz. Marcy was a petite brunette with penetrating gray eyes that looked as if she could see into your very soul. She spoke English with a slight accent, which she explained, "I have it because I picked it up from my grandparents, who are not native English-speakers. They were born in Poland and moved to Britain a few years after World War Two. They're Jewish and survived the Holocaust, mostly due to being magical. They home-schooled me, since Mum and Dad were busy with work."

Introductions were made and for the next two hours until dinner, the twenty first-years talked and got to know each other better. By the end of the meeting, they had all decided to become friends and that this room would be where they would meet. All of them swore an oath to not reveal the location of this room to anyone else, unless it was someone they felt was trustworthy and wanted to add to the group, and then went to ask the portrait to create a password for them. The Founders consulted among themselves and decided on "Hogwarts united', which was something they wanted and felt that the group was working towards that, since it was composed of friends from all four houses.

Classes continued and the group of twenty, who had decided to call themselves the Hogwarts Gang for the time being, met every evening in the Founders' room to hang out and work on homework together. The afternoons, after classes, were spent in exploring Hogwarts so that they wouldn't get lost in the future or touring the grounds.

On Thursday was Emily's first Potions class, held with the Gryffindors. Normally the Gryffindors and Slytherins had Potions together, but it seemed that this year, Professor Snape had been able to talk Dumbledore into not doing that for the first-year classes.

The Head of Slytherin swept into the room, his black robes flapping, very much like a vampire. Emily then recalled what Aunt Petunia had told her, that a person named Severus Snape had lived in the same town as the Evanses did and had become friends with Lily, telling her all about the magical world and that she was a witch a couple of years before she got her Hogwarts letter. Aunt Petunia had also said that Lily and Snape had stopped being friends after fifth year, but as the two sisters weren't getting along at the time, Aunt Petunia had no idea why, other than that an insult had seemed to be involved.

Emily smiled wryly at the thought that her mother's former friend was now her Potions professor. She then realised that Alex had been her version of Snape, telling her all about magic three years before she was due to attend Hogwarts. Emily sincerely hoped that unlike her mother had with Snape, she would not have a falling out with Alex and stop being friends with him.

After giving a speech on Potions, Snape looked at Emily and barked, "Miss Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

She blinked, then recalled what she had read and answered, "It would make a sleeping potion known as the Draught of Living Death, sir."

"Correct. Tell me, Miss Potter, where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?"

Emily was tempted to say, "In the supply cupboard', but she had feeling that he would not be amused and would take points off from Hufflepuff for her cheek. Instead, she answered correctly, "A bezoar would be found in the stomach of a goat and is a stone used to counter most poisons."

"Correct," said Snape, sounding slightly grumpy, but with a somewhat pleased look in his eye. "Finally, what is the difference between monkshod and wolfsbane?"

For a moment, Emily blanked out, but then recalled the relevant passage in _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_. "They are the same plant, which is also known by the name of aconite, sir."

"Correct," said Snape grudgingly. "Apparently you've inherited your mother's talent at Potions, the theoretical part, anyway. One point to Hufflepuff and we shall see how well you do at brewing potions." The other students had varying degrees of shock on their faces, for they had heard from older students that Snape favored Slytherins, rarely awarded points to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and never to Gryffindor.

With a wave of his wand, directions appeared on the board and everyone was told to pair up and work on brewing a simple potion to cure boils. Emily partnered with Marcy and they got to work. The other girl was quite good at making potions and as a result, they were able to brew a perfect potion. Snape inspected their work and awarded Hufflepuff another point, but gave none to Gryffindor.

Ernie and Hannah also produced a perfect potion, mainly due to the fact that they had followed the instructions carefully and worked hard at it, particularly Ernie. To their surprise, Snape grudgingly awarded them a point.

Alex and Neville worked together. They barely managed to avoid disaster as Alex saw that Neville was about to add the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire and stopped him in the nick of time. After realizing his mistake, Neville apologized and then paid more attention.

On Friday, Aunt Petunia sent a package of biscuits (cookies) and a letter expressing her approval of the Hogwarts Gang and how everything was going so well. Hagrid also sent a note inviting the Hogwarts Gang over for tea that afternoon. Diana accepted for them all and at three in the afternoon all twenty of them went to Hagrid's hut. Fang greeted them enthusiastically and tried to lick Ron's and Justin's ears.

As the hut wasn't that big, it was something of a squeeze to fit everyone, but eventually everyone got settled. Hagrid made tea and asked how the first week of classes went. They all said they liked them. The rock cakes that were set out were horrible and really as hard as rocks, but the twenty politely pretended to enjoy them.

While Hagrid was asking Ron about his older brother Charlie, Emily noticed the newspaper clipping on the table, which said there had been no leads on the break-in at Gringotts that occured on her birthday. She pointed out the clipping to the others gathered around the table and then exclaimed, "Hagrid! That break-in happened on my birthday! What if it occured while I was there with my family and friends?"

Hagrid quickly looked away and loudly offered Tracey some more tea. It was quite obvious that he was avoiding the issue and that was Diana remembered that Hagrid had business at Gringotts for Dumbledore, about "You-know-what" in vault 713, from what she had overheard him tell the goblin. Could it be that the vault Hagrid had gone to was the one that had been targeted for theft? If it had, then that would mean that he had taken whatever was in there just in time.

On the way back to the castle, Diana told the others what she'd realized. Padma then came up with the theory that as Hogwarts was the safest place to hide something, along with Gringotts, whatever had been removed from the vault was now at Hogwarts, probably in the forbidden third floor corridor. The others agreed that it made sense.

Author's Note: If you can come up with a better name for the group than the Hogwarts Gang, please write it in a review for PM. Thank you. If I pick your name, I will credit you in the chapter with the name change and send you a large box of virtual chocolate.


	9. Chapter 9

The next week flying lessons started. Emily was quite eager to begin them, for Susan Bones had told her that James Potter had been a good Quidditch player and had been on the Gryffindor team. Emily hoped that she had inherited some of her father's flying talent and planned to try out for the Hufflepuff team next year, for the beater and one of the chasers would be graduating at the end of the year. She wished she could try out this year, for the team needed a new seeker and chaser, and that first years could have brooms.

On Wednesday afternoon the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw went out to the Quidditch pitch for the flying class. About twenty brooms lay on the ground in two rows. Madam Hooch, the instructor, appeared. After greeting the class, she told everyone to stretch a hand over their broom and say 'Up'. Emily's broom flew up to her hand at once, but it was one of the three that did so. Other had to say 'Up!' a few more times before their brooms flew into their hands, Hermione's broom merely rolled on the ground, and Hannah's broom refused to move at all. Considering that Hannah had a fear of heights when she wasn't standing on a solid surface, it wasn't that surprising.

Finally everyone was holding their brooms and Madam Hooch proceeded to demonstrate how to mount and hold them. She corrected a few grips. After that, at her whistle, the class took off. Hannah promptly let out a shriek when she found herself more than twenty feet up in the air. She tumbled off her broom, but Emily, who had been flying near her, managed to grab her robe. With Ling's and Susan's help, the three girls were able to get Hannah to sit behind Emily, who then carefully landed.

Madam Hooch praised the girls for their rescue and after making sure Hannah was all right, had her sit out for the rest of the lesson. The instructor than informed Emily that she was an excellent flier and seemed to have inherited her father's talent. Emily blushed and then took off again. Anthony took out a small glass globe and began playing catch with Terry.

After a few minutes, Terry missed the globe and it began falling towards the ground. Emily went diving after it and three feet from the ground, managed to catch it. She then was barely able to pull herself up out of the dive. "Miss Potter!" exclaimed a voice.

Emily gave a start and turned her broom around to see Professor Sprout standing next to Madam Hooch, a surprised but pleased expression on her face. "That was excellent flying, Miss Potter," said Professor Sprout, a smile on her face. "I would like to see you after class."

After class, Emily was taken to Professor Sprout's office, where a sixth year girl was waiting. Emily recognized her as Johanna Kraler, chaser and captain of the Hufflepuff team. "Miss Kraler, I have found you a seeker," said Professor Sprout.

Emily blinked in surprise. Alex had told her about Quidditch and had let her read his copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_, so she knew about the popular wizarding sport. However, she had not expected that she would actually be allowed to play on the team as a first year.

Johanna looked surprised as well. "Are you certain, Professor? I know we need a new Seeker, but tryouts are being held tomorrow and Cedric Diggory and a couple of other people have said they wanted to try out for Seeker."

"Emily Potter caught a small glass globe a few feet from the ground while executing a fifty-foot dive," responded Sprout. "She didn't even scratch herself. Even Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it when he was on the Gryffindor team."

Johanna looked delighted. "Well, that changes things. With Emily on the team, we'll have a real chance of winning the Quidditch Cup. Of course, I need to see how good she is, so Emily, I would like you to attend the tryouts tomorrow. It's just for form's sake, since I'm sure you'll do admirably and get the Seeker position. Thank you for finding her, Professor Sprout."

"You're welcome. Miss Potter, I'll speak to Professor Dumbledore and see about bending the first-year rule so that we can get you a decent broom. Oh, and please don't tell anyone about this, other than your friends, but after you've told them to keep it a secret. I don't want the rest of the school finding out about it until the time comes."

"All right, Professor Sprout," said Emily. After that, she was dismissed, and she went to the Founders' Room so she could tell the rest of the Hogwarts Gang what happened, after swearing them to secrecy of course.

The next evening, Emily attended the tryouts. Out of the other candidates for Seeker, Cedric Diggory was the only one that was more than moderately good. He wasn't as good as her, though, for she beat him to the Snitch the three times that it was let out. He was very good-natured about it and then went to try out for the Chaser position. He didn't get that position, either, but was made both reserve Seeker and Chaser, due to his excellent flying skills and being second best out of all the candidates for both positions.

After tryouts, Emily wrote to Aunt Petunia to tell her news. A week after that, courtsey of her aunt and Professor Sprout, a Nimbus Two Thousand, the newest and best broom out so far, was delivered to her at breakfast. Her Hufflepuff friends had difficulty containing their delight, and when they went with her to put the broom away, was stopped by Malfoy, his two lackeys, Pansy, and Millicent out in the hall.

"What's that?" asked Pansy nastily, pointing at Emily's package.

Malfoy grabbed it and felt it. "That's a broomstick, Potter," he said with a mixture of spite and jealously. "You'll be in trouble for this, first-years aren't allowed brooms at Hogwarts."

"That's not any old broom, Malfoy, that's a Nimbus Two Thousand," snapped Susan. "What was it you said, that you had a Comet Two Sixty at home?"

"Comets may be flashy, but they're not as fast as a Nimbus," added Justin, who had spent some of the last few days looking at a copy of _Which Broomstick?_ when the Hogwarts Gang had been wondering what kind of broom Emily would get.

"How would you know, you're just a Mudblood and not fit to fly on any broom," Malfoy spat.

Justin turned red, while the rest of the Hufflepuff turned angry. "How dare you call Justin that word!" cried Emily, eyes flashing. She pulled out her wand, intending to hex Malfoy, when Professor Flitwick appeared next to them.

"Not fighting, are we, boys and girls?" he asked in his squeaky tone of voice.

"Emily Potter's been given a broomstick," answered Pansy quickly.

"Ah yes, Pomona, I mean Professor Sprout, told me all about the special circumstances. What model is it, Miss Potter?"

"A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir," replied Emily, noticing that Pansy looked thunderstruck.

"Very good. I'm sure you'll do admirably in your first match, though I do hope that my house wins, of course. Go along your way then, students."

Emily shot the Slytherins smug looks and then she had her friends went upstairs.

After that, Emily had Quidditch practice at least two times a week. Though she was smart and a good student, she still needed a little help from Hermione to get through all her homework on days when she had Quidditch practice.

One evening, the five Ravenclaws stayed longer than the rest of the Hogwarts Gang to finish their homework. By the time Ling looked at her watch, it was almost ten o'clock. Terry cursed under his breath as they realized that it was past curfew. Nervously they made their way back to the Ravenclaw common room, hoping that they wouldn't get caught.

Unfortunately, Filch could be heard talking to Mrs. Norris somewhere along the route and the Ravenclaws ran away from that direction. However, the noise they made attracted the attention of the caretaker, who went seeking for the cause. Finally the five reached a locked door. Hermione used "Alohomora" to unlock it and they quickly piled in the room. A minute later, Filch was heard walking by. After another couple of minutes, Padma let out a stifled shriek and Anthony gasped. The other three turned and saw a giant three-headed dog. The only reason it hadn't attacked was because their entrance had surprised it, but it was slowly recovering.

Terry looked white and Hermione and Ling barely managed to keep from screaming. As they backed out the door, Hermione and Anthony happened to glance at the floor and saw that the Cerberus was standing on the trapdoor. The five ran all the way to the Ravenclaw common room, where the bronze eagle-shaped knocker asked, "What is round like the moon and deep as a cup, but all the water in the world cannot fill it up?" Gasping for breath, the five exchanged looks, wondering what the answer was.

Finally Ling figured it out and gasped out "A- a s-sieve."

"Correct," said the knocker and they were allowed to enter.

Once they had all calmed down, Anthony asked, "Did anyone besides me see what the three-headed dog was standing on?"

"The floor?" asked Padma sarcastically. "I was too busy staring at its three heads to pay any attention to its feet."

"No, not the floor!" exclaimed Hermione impatiently. "It was standing on a trapdoor! That dog is obviously guarding something, most likely whatever it was Dumbledore asked Hagrid to fetch from Gringotts."

Terry gasped. "We have to tell the others about it tomorrow." The others agreed and then they went to bed.


	10. Chapter 10

Marcy frowned after hearing about the three-headed dog and that it was guarding something, presumably whatever Hagrid had removed from Gringotts. She took out a small blue-covered book and started writing in it. Everyone looked at her curiously, for she had two books, one blue and one yellow, which she often wrote in. "Aha!" she exclaimed. She took out the yellow book and flipped through it. "Can you tell me any of the people who were at the Leaky Cauldron on July 31st, Emily?"

Emily's brow furrowed in thought. "Well, besides Tom the barman, there was a guy named Dedalus Diggle. And a woman named Doris Crockford shook my hand repeatedly. There was also an elderly witch named - er - something Elderidge. Oh yeah, Professor Quirrell was there as well. Said he was picking up a book on vampires. I don't now the names of the rest."

Marcy looked up at that. "Professor Quirrell was there too?" She flipped a few more pages and tapped an entry she had made. "That's not good." She looked up and regarded her friends silently for a few minutes. "I have a special ability," she said finally. "I can see people's auras and tell if they're good, evil, neutral, or unpleasant but not evil. I can also sense some other things, like if someone has suffered grief, had an unrequited love, or is lying, but those don't work all the time like with my seeing auras, and it's doesn't happen for each person. I'm also a Seer. Well, I can see flashes of the future at times, and my parents and grandparents have told me that I blanked out a couple of times and said prophecies."

The rest were very surprised by this information. "Which means I can see that the rest of you are very nice and wonderful people. I also foresaw that I would become friends with a number of students. Anyway, what I sensed about Professor Quirrell was not good."

"Quirrell?" asked Ron, surprised. "What could be not good about him? It's Snape that's more likely-"

"Snape isn't evil," interrupted Marcy flatly. She flipped to the entry she had made about Snape and read, "Professor Severus Snape is essentially a good person, but does have an unpleasant nature. He has had an unrequited love once and suffered a loss. Is currently afflicated on how to treat his students, as he has favored Slytherin for so long and it would look odd if he started being fair to everyone."

"What about the other teachers?" asked Padma curiously.

"Basically that they're all on the side of good, except for Professors Binns and Quirrell," replied Marcy. "Binns I can't use my Gift on because he's dead and it doesn't work on ghosts, and Quirrell is just plain evil and somehow has two auras. The second one is pure evil and somewhat scary, and if I had to assign a colour to it, it would be black. And there's a green streak showing that he was in Slytherin. The auras I see of witches and wizards in Britain all have a streak the colour of whatever house they were in Hogwarts, or the qualities of that house if they're under eleven. Some have more than one streak if they could fit in more than one house."

The others were extremely surprised by the news. "Quirrell has more than one aura?" demanded Ernie. "But how is that possible? He's only supposed to have one aura."

"I suppose he could be possessed," responded Marcy with a shrug. "But in any case, he does have two. One is black with a few small streaks of grey, which means neither good nor bad, plus two streaks of blue and green. The blue one is slightly larger, which means the person with that aura was in Ravenclaw. The other is all black except for the green streak meaning Slytherin."

"This is very interesting," said Ling thoughtfully. "If Quirrell is possessed, and both he and the person possessing him are evil, then why is he even teaching at Hogwarts? And that stutter!"

"The stutter could either be a flaw or an act. As for him teaching here, Dumbledore obviously doesn't have the Gift of seeing auras, and neither do the other teachers, so they don't know."

"Why don't we go to Dumbledore and tell him about Quirrell then?" asked Justin.

"And do you think Dumbledore will automatically believe the words of students about another teacher?" asked Hermione wisely. "He could say that we're mistaken. Or he would believe us to an extent, but not fire Quirrell and instead just keep a close eye on him."

Emily sighed. "Okay, Quirrell is up to no good, and may be possessed by an evil person. The other teachers aren't evil, or are at least on the side of good, since Snape does act a bit evil to anyone not in Slytherin, particularly Gryffindors. And Marcy can't use her Gifts on ghosts."

"Well, not completely," said Marcy. "I can tell how or why they died. Like with Nearly-Headless Nick. Well, I don't need any Gift to tell how he died. It's rather obvious he died from a botched beheading. But I do have a general idea of why he was beheaded. A spell he did in order to help someone went awry and before he could correct it, he was sentenced to beheading by Muggles."

"What about the other house ghosts?" asked Daphne with interest.

"The Grey Lady stole something and ran away, and then was accidentally murdered by someone sent to bring her back. The Bloody Baron committed suicide in a fit of remorse and grief over something he didn't mean to do. As for the Fat Friar, I don't know why he died, only that he wanted to remain on earth as a ghost and guide students, particularly Hufflepuffs, after death as he did in life when he was the equivalent of a chaplain here at Hogwarts. Oh, and Binns really did the die the way students tell it. He simply died in his sleep in front of the staff fire and he, or rather his ghost, just got up the next day and went on teaching as usual."

"Okay, let's get back to Quirrell and whatever's being hidden at Hogwarts," said Susan. "What are we going to do about it?"

"There's not much we can do," replied Diana. "Just keep an eye on Quirrell and practice Defence on our own, since we're not learning much practical stuff in the class, just theory."

"Well, this room is perfect for practicing spells," pointed out Seamus. "We've got books with the information, and that empty area surrounded by cushions to actually do them."

"All right then," said Blaise. "We can look through some of the books on Defence that are in this room and then partner up and practice as many of the easier spells as we can tomorrow."

The others were in complete agreement of the idea and began leafing through the Defence books.

The next day, while they were practicing Disarming, a house-elf appeared. This one was female and Alex instantly recognized her. "Adelly! What are you doing here?"

"Adelly is telling Master Alex that his father is fully recovered from the flu," she answered. "Master Malfoy is visiting Master Carrow now."

Alex groaned. "Now he'll know that I'm in Gryffindor." He turned to the others and explained, "My father's cold turned into the flu the day after we left for Hogwarts. My two letters home only said that Hogwarts was great and that I was doing well in classes. I didn't mention what house I was in, and the only other people that can tell him are the parents of Slytherins, like the Malfoys and Parkinsons, if their kids wrote them about it, which they probably did. Since Father was ill, he wouldn't have any visitors that could tell him, and I doubt he would have read any letters, or I would have heard of his displeasure earlier. But now he's going to find out."

"That's terrible!" exclaimed Hannah. "Is your father going to be awful about the whole thing?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't care. I've spent my entire life being a rebel and going against what my family says, except for common sense stuff like brushing your teeth and being polite to others. If I actually cared about what Father thinks, I would have asked to be Sorted into Slytherin, not Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Or let the Sorting Hat put me in Ravenclaw so that while Father wouldn't be happy that I wasn't in Slytherin, he would still accept it. Adelly, you can go now."

Adelly bowed and left. "But how is your dad going to react besides being angry?" asked Dean.

"How should I know?" returned Alex. "I suppose he'll send a Howler, though." Noting the puzzled looks on the six that were Muggleborn or raised in the Muggle world, he paused to explain about Howlers and then continued, "If he's mad enough, he could disown me, which I frankly don't care. But if he decides to withdraw me from Hogwarts and send me to Durmstrang because he thinks I'm being corrupted here, I will care. Durmstrang is a school somewhere in Eastern Europe or Russia that focuses on the Dark Arts. I don't want to go there. The headmaster is Igor Karkoff, who was a Death Eater, but avoided Azkaban by turning in a bunch of other Death Eaters." Seeing puzzled looks on Terry's, Justin's, and Dean's faces, he clarified, "Death Eaters are what the followers of Voldemort are called, and Azkaban is the wizarding prison."

There were winces from most of the people in the room. Marcy frowned and snapped, "It's just a stupid name! There's nothing to be afraid of! Hitler was a Muggle that was responsible for even worse things than Voldemort ever did, but Muggles aren't afraid of saying his name."

"But Hitler's dead, and has been for almost fifty years," pointed out Emily reasonably. "And he never actually did the deeds. It was his underlings and those appointed to positions of power within the camps that actually carried them out. Hitler mainly commanded everything. On the other hand, Voldemort really did torture and kill people. Like my parents."

"But Voldemort was never responsible for the deaths of over ten million people, was he? He never had people locked up where they were worked and starved to death or died of disease. The ones that weren't locked up got killed, but it wasn't as quick and painless as the Killing Curse."

"Okay, that's enough," interrupted Anthony before Marcy went on a full-blown rant or it turned into an argument. "We'll try not to be so scared of V-Vol-You-Know-Who's name in the future, Marcy. Now, can we please go back to our original subject on Alex's situation?"

Alex sighed. "As long as Father doesn't try to send me to Durmstrang, I really don't care what he does. If he does try to send me to Durmstrang, I'll run away and find someplace else to live."

Tracey opened her mouth to point out he had nowhere to go unless the family of one of them offered a place, but he firmly said that he didn't want to talk about it anymore. They respected his wishes and went back to working on Disarming.

The next morning, at breakfast, an owl bearing a scarlet envelope landed at the Gryffindor table. Alex made a face and opened the Howler as several students stuck fingers in their ears.

"_ALEXANDER THESUS CARROW, YOU ARE A COMPLETE AND UTTER DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY! LUCIUS MALFOY CAME BY TO VISIT, INFORMING ME THAT YOU HAD INSULTED DRACO, BEEN SORTED INTO GRYFFINDOR, AND ARE FRIENDS WITH MUDBLOODS, HALFBLOODS, AND BLOOD TRAITORS. HOW DARE YOU ACT LIKE THIS! I THOUGHT I HAD RAISED YOU TO BE A PROPER PUREBLOOD AND HEIR OF THE CARROW FAMILY. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU WERE ABLE TO BECOME FRIENDS WITH EMILY POTTER AND TWO MUDBLOOD GIRLS BEFORE STARTING HOGWARTS, BUT WHEN I DO, IT WON'T GO WELL FOR YOU! YOU ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE AND CAN EXPECT TO BE PUNISHED WHEN YOU COME HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. YOU HAD BETTER START ACTING PROPERLY NOW, OR I'LL SEND YOU TO DURMSTRANG_!"

With that, the envelope burst into flames. When all that was left was ashes, Alex swept them to the floor, an I-don't-care look on his face. After several seconds of shocked silence, conversation resumed, but it was mostly about the contents of the Howler.

Three days later Halloween arrived and students woke up to the smell of baking pumpkin. In Charms class that day, Professor Flitwick announced that they would be practicing the Levitation Charm. The Gryffindor/Ravenclaw class went well, but the Hufflepuff/Slytherin class didn't go so smoothly. Diana, to her disgust, had been paired with Draco Malfoy. When Malfoy didn't get the spell right, Diana had snapped at him and then did the charm correctly. Though Professor Flitwick awarded five points to Slytherin for it, Malfoy was sour for the rest of class.

When class ended and everyone was out in the hall, he snapped, "How dare you try to show me up! You're a stupid little Mudblood that's not fit to even clean my shoes, much less attend Hogwarts. I hope you suffer as sticky an end as your cousin's parents did!"

Diana, who was already annoyed at having been paired with him, snapped. Instead of anger, however, her feelings were deeply hurt. "You little-!" She made a feeble attempt to slap him and then ran down the corridor, barely able to contain her tears.

Emily, Hannah, and Susan ran after her, while Daphne and Tracey rounded on Malfoy. "I can't believe you, Malfoy!" Tracey burst out, eyes flashing with anger. "You deserve to live without magic!" Daphne slapped him hard and then the two girls went after Diana as well.

Diana spent the rest of the afternoon in the Founder's room, crying. The rest of the Hogwarts gang tried to comfort her and only went to class because she insisted, not wanting them to get in trouble for skipping it. After class, they went back and succeeded in finally soothing her just before the Halloween feast. Unfortunately, partway through the feast, Malfoy made a comment that upset Diana again. She got up, said she was going to the bathroom, and insisted that Tracey and Daphne remain for the rest of the feast.

A few minutes after that, Professor Quirrell burst into the Great Hall. "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you should know," he gasped. With that, he collapsed into a dead faint.

There was instant pandemonium, which ended only when Dumbledore used his wand to let out a few firecracker noises. He asked the prefects to lead the students to the common rooms, except for the Slytherins, who would go to the library as their common room was in the dungeons.

Emily, however, recalled seeing Diana leave the feast earlier and realized that she wouldn't know about the troll. She quickly told her Hufflepuff friends about it and then went off to ask Daphne and Tracey where Diana was. The other four Hufflepuffs followed her.

In the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor groups, Hermione and Alex had realized the same thing Emily did, and the rest of the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors in the Hogwarts Gang went with them to ask the Slytherins where Diana was. Blaise answered, "Malfoy said something that made Diana upset again and she went to the bathroom. She told Daphne and Tracey not to go with her."

"Well, we're going to have to find her and warn her about the troll," said Terry, sighing.

"All nineteen of us don't have to go, do we?" asked Ling in some alarm. "This is a big group."

Marcy nodded. "Diana is our friend." A strange look crossed her face for a second and she gasped. "Wonderful. I got a flash of the future that showed Diana encountering the troll and all of us coming to her rescue. So I suppose we had all better go. Come on, guys."

The nineteen of them nervously left the other students and went off in search for Diana, keeping an eye out for teachers and prefects so that they wouldn't be caught. Neville wondered out loud how a troll could have gotten into Hogwarts. Padma shrugged and replied that she'd read that trolls were stupid, and Ron suggested that maybe Peeves had let it in for a Halloween prank.

Suddenly a very horrible and foul odour reached their nostrils. If Emily had to describe it, she would say that it was a mixture of rotten eggs, extremely smelly socks, the kind of lavatory no one ever cleaned, and a bag of Dungbombs that had been just set off.

They all stopped, wrinkling their noses or pinching them shut, and then saw the troll appear, carrying a large club. It paused, then entered a doorway that had a key in the lock. "We could lock it in," suggested Justin nervously. "Then we get a teacher."

"No, you idiot, that's the girl's bathroom!" snapped Emily, too worked up to be polite. "Di could be in there!" Just then, there was a scream, proving her right.

"Diana!" they all gasped, and ran to the bathroom, not caring that they were scared of the troll.

It was something a squeeze to fit all of them plus a frightened Diana and a large troll.

"We need to do something!" exclaimed Tracey, drawing out her wand.

Dean grabbed a tap the troll had knocked off and threw it, yelling at the same time. The tap didn't seem to bother the troll, but the yells did. It turned and Emily darted past to pull Diana to the rest of the group. Everyone now had their wands drawn and were circled around the troll.

"Petrify it!" shouted Hermione. "We've been practicing the Full-Body Bind!"

"Good idea, Mia!" responded Ernie. "On the count of three! One—two—three—"

"Petrificus Totalus!" they all shouted at the same time. Twenty Full-Body Binds of varying strengths shot from their wands and hit the troll. It swayed and then fell to the floor with a crash.

Seamus nervously stepped forward and looked down at it. "It's knocked out. We'd better get the teachers and let them figure out what to do next with the troll."

The Hogwarts gang backed out of the bathroom only to discover that their respective heads of house had arrived on the scene. "What are you all doing here?" demanded McGonagall, looking furious. "Why aren't you all back in your dorms? Or in the library in the case of the Slytherins?"

"Er, they were looking for me, Professor McGonagall," said Diana timidly.

The four teachers looked at her. "Miss Evans!" exclaimed Snape. "Looking for you?"

Diana nodded. "I had gone to the bathroom and didn't know about the troll. They came to warn me, but the troll showed up just before they did, so we had no choice but to fight it."

"You don't mean to say that all of you felt the need to warn Miss Evans?" asked Sprout.

"We're her friends," said Alex defiantly. "And in Emily's case, her cousin. All twenty of us banded together regardless of the houses we're in and vowed to be friends."

The four heads were very surprised by this. "How interesting," commented Flitwick. "And quite wonderful. There hasn't been a case of such inter-house unity that I can remember."

"Yes, it is wonderful, but how did you all defeat the troll?" asked McGonagall.

"We used the Full-Body Bind," answered Dean. "All of us did the spell at the same time. We've taken to studying together and working on Defence on our own, since Professor Quirrell isn't a good teacher and we're not learning any practical stuff from him, just theory."

Sprout nodded. "I see. Well, that was good work. Most first-years wouldn't be able to successfully defeat a troll, even if there were twenty of you doing the same spell."

"I suppose," said Snape grudgingly. "But they were still were out-of-bounds."

"All right, then, five points will be taken from each student for it," said Flitwick briskly. "And they are each awarded fifteen points for defeating the troll and having inter-house unity."

"That's settled," said McGonagall. "If none of you are hurt, then you had all better go to your respective common rooms, where the students are finishing the feast. The five Slytherins in the group, please go to the library and tell your housemates that it's safe to go back to your common room. Food will be delivered there. I will inform Professor Dumbledore of this incident."

The Hogwarts gang nodded and left. Once they were far away enough so that they couldn't smell the troll anymore, they stopped and looked at each other. "That was rather unexpected," said Anthony. "After taking off the points we lost, we ended up winning fifty points for each house."

"Well, other than maybe Snape, all our Heads of house were pleased that there was inter-house unity going on," pointed out Susan. "And I think facing the troll made our friendship stronger."

Padma nodded. "I agree. There are some things you can't share without becoming friends, or even better friends if you're already friends, and defeating a mountain troll is one of them."

"So would any number of other dangerous situations," said Neville. "I can't believe I actually faced a troll. I guess having the rest of you there made me feel brave."

"You're already brave, Neville," said Ron. "Or you wouldn't have been Sorted in Gryffindor."

Hannah smiled. "All of us were quite brave to face that troll and petrify it."

"Well, we'd better go to our common rooms and finish the feast," said Daphne. "And those of us in Slytherin have to tell the others that it's safe to return to our common room."

The Hogwarts gang split up into groups of five and went their separate ways, planning to met up in the Founders' Room the next afternoon and discuss things further.

Author's Note: I had planned to have Alex get a Howler over his Sorting much sooner, but I forgot to include it when the time came. So instead, I created the excuse that Amycus Carrow was sick with the flu for over a month and was only able to send a Howler when he got well. I also included the troll scene after much debate with myself, since I wanted the heads of house and Dumbledore to find out about the Hogwarts gang and the inter-house unity that is going on among some of the first years.


	11. Chapter 11

Dumbledore sat at his desk, writing letters to the parents/guardians of the Hogwarts Gang, informing them of the troll incident and the inter-house unity that was going on. He had been very surprised when the four Heads of house had told him about the inter-house unity between about half of the first years and that the group had defeated the troll by all using the Full-Body Bind. After finishing the last letter, to Mr. and Mrs. Macmillian, he sent out the nineteen letters and then sat back down at his desk. The voice of Godric Gryffindor interrupted his thoughts. "We strongly approve of all that is occuring, Albus. It's wonderful that twenty students from different houses are friends."

Dumbledore looked up at the portrait in mild surprise and then glanced at the three other portraits next to the one of Godric. "And what do the rest of you think?"

"We agree with Godric," said Helga Hufflepuff. "It's about time that there was some inter-house unity occuring between all four houses."

"And not just for something like the Tri-wizard Tournament," added Rowena Ravenclaw. "Because that was the last time there was any inter-house unity, and it certainly wasn't anything like the group we have now."

"With the way things are going, I predict that the unity won't end with this group," said Salazar Slytherin. "Students in future years will band together despite house differences, and I'm sure some of the older ones will be more open with their friendships with students in other houses."

Dumbledore smiled. "That is wonderful." He gave a start, however, when the four portraits informed him that there was to no longer be any house tables other than at the beginning and end-of-term feasts. Instead, there would be tables that would sit up to twenty, and students could sit at whichever table they wished. This would allow friends from separate houses to sit with each other, though it wasn't against the rules to sit at a house table that wasn't your own. Dumbledore agreed to it, however, and made arrangements for the Great Hall to be changed as told.

The next morning, all the students were surprised by the new seating arrangements. The Hogwarts Gang was very pleased with it and immediately took seats at one of the tables. After some hesitation, the rest of the students sat down, and there was a mixing of houses as friends and relatives in different houses sat together.

The day after that, a Howler arrived for Alex, who made a face at the inconvience but opened it anyway.

"_ALEXANDER THESUS CARROW, YOU HAVE ANGERED ME AGAIN! HOW DARE YOU FRATERNIZE WITH UNSUITABLE STUDENTS, GO FACE A TROLL, AND BE A PART OF INTER-HOUSE UNITY! IT'S ENOUGH OF A DISGRACE THAT YOU'RE IN GRYFFINDOR WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO BE FRIENDS WITH RAVENCLAWS AND HUFFLEPUFFS. THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT YOU SAY YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH THAT I APPROVE OF ARE DAPHNE GREENGRASS, BLAISE ZABINI, AND TRACEY DAVIS, AND EVEN THEY ARE STARTING TO BE QUESTIONABLE SINCE THEY'RE ASSOCIATING WITH IMPROPER STUDENTS ALSO. YOU ARE IN MORE TROUBLE THAN BEFORE AND YOUR PUNISHMENT WHEN YOU GET HOME IS HARSHER. I EXPECT YOU TO STOP BEHAVING IN SUCH A HORRIBLE MANNER AND ACT LIKE A PROPER PUREBLOOD, AND NOT A BLOOD TRAITOR LIKE THE WEASLEYS, OR YOU'LL BE SENT TO DURMSTRANG!_"

Everyone stared at Alex, who unconcernedly brushed the ashes of the Howler off the table and resumed eating his toast and eggs. "How can you be so calm about this?" asked Susan.

"I'm not, but I'm not about to show my anger and disgust in front of all the other students and the teachers," he replied. "If it was just you guys it'd be different."

Another owl appeared a few seconds later and left a Howler, this one from his Aunt Alecto.

"_ALEXANDER THESUS CARROW, WHAT IS THIS I HEAR ABOUT YOU BEING IN GRYFFINDOR RATHER THAN SLYTHERIN, FRATERNIZING WITH MUDBLOODS, HALFBLOODS, AND BLOOD-TRAITORS, AND SUPPORTING INTER-HOUSE UNITY? I THOUGHT YOUR FATHER AND I RAISED YOU TO BE BETTER THAN THIS! YOU ARE A COMPLETE AND UTTER DISGRACE TO THE FAMILY AND I HAVE HALF A MIND TO NOT ACKNOWLEDGE YOU AS MY NEPHEW. HOWEVER, YOU ARE STILL YOUNG AND CAN BE TAUGHT TO MEND YOUR WAYS, SO I WON'T. THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME ANY LESS ANGRY WITH YOUR BEHAVIOUR, THOUGH, AND WHEN YOU RETURN HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, YOUR FATHER AND I WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOU LEARN THE ERROR OF YOUR WAYS!_"

An angry expression appeared on Alex's face, which he quickly hid as he brushed the ashes of Aunt Alecto's Howler to the floor. The rest of the Hogwarts Gang exchanged looks and after classes, took Alex up to the Founders' room so he could vent. After he threw his quill pens and parchment across the room and said some very uncomplimentary things about his father and aunt, he calmed down enough to pick up what he threw and sit down.

At dinner time, Daphne and Tracey each got a Howler from their parents, shouting about how they were a disgrace to the family for being friends with 'Mudbloods' and that Alex must have corrupted them, for they certainly hadn't acted like this before attending Hogwarts. Tracey couldn't help looking embarrassed and uncomfortable, though she said firmly that she wasn't going to give up her friendships. Daphne was extremely angry, like Alex, but vented in private and declared, "Alex hasn't corrupted me, he just made me see reason."

The first Quidditch match of the year, Gryffindor against Slytherin, occurred. The Hogwarts Gang supported Gryffindor, even the ones in Slytherin, for they were too annoyed with their housemates' behavior against them. While the Gryffindor Chasers and Keeper were very good, their Seeker wasn't. He was a second year named Cormac McClaggen. While he was a good flier, his body size made him more suited for Keeper, and he kept criticizing the way his teammates were playing. Fred and George Weasley were extremely annoyed and only refrained from hitting a Bludger at him because they needed him in action to catch the Snitch.

However, the twins should have just hit him with a Bludger, for thirty-seven minutes into the match, Cormac started trying to lecture Oliver Wood on proper goalkeeping and didn't notice that the Snitch was in sight. Terrence Higgs, the Slytherin seeker, went streaking after it and by the time Cormac noticed, it was too late. Higgs caught the Snitch and Slytherin won the match, one hundred sixty points to ninety. The Gryffindors were completely disgusted and Wood shouted at Cormac as Lee Jordan unhappily announced the results.

The week after that was the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw match. Emily was extremely nervous about the match and couldn't help having dreams about doing terribly and getting kicked off the team. All her friends supported her and hoped that she did well, though naturally the Ravenclaws in the group wanted their house to win.

The match started off fairly well and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw each scored two goals. Emily flew around, searching for the Snitch, constantly tailed by the Ravenclaw Seeker, a boy named Edward Sands. Partway through the match, though, her broom started acting oddly and she had to work hard not to be thrown off. In the stands, her friends stared at her in consernation and Hagrid wondered out loud if someone wasn't tampering with the broom.

At these words, Diana borrowed Hagrid's binoculars and started scanning the stands. "Oh no!" she gasped. "Snape is staring at Emily and muttering. He could be jinxing her broom."

Marcy shook her head. "Quirrell's doing the same thing, Di." She lowered her binoculars and handed it to Hermione so she could look. "I wager that one of them is cursing the broom and the other is doing the countercurse. Given my gifts, I believe Quirrell's the one doing the cursing. I'll deal with this." She got up and swiftly made her way to the row behind Quirrell. She knocked into him and then, to be on the safe side, went on to Snape, where she used "Aguamenti" to make his robes wet. He yelped and began examining his robes while Marcy quickly ran off so she wouldn't be spotted.

Up in the air, Emily, who had been unseated but still held on to her Nimbus, was able to clamber back on again and resumed her search for the Snitch. She was diving after it, Edward Sands behind her, when suddenly the Snitch disappeared right under her outstretched hand. She was puzzled by this until she felt something moving about in her sleeve two seconds later. She reached in with her left hand and withdrew the Snitch, which had obviously flown into her sleeve. "I've got the Snitch!" she shouted happily.

Edward looked disappointed, but congratulated Emily as Lee Jordan announced that Hufflepuff had won, two hundred points to eighty. The Hufflepuffs cheered loudly over their win, and even the Ravenclaw members of the Hogwarts Gang joined in despite their disappointment that Ravenclaw had lost.

While visiting Hagrid an hour later, for he'd invited the Hogwarts Gang for some tea to celebrate Hufflepuff's victory, they told them about Quirrell and Snape. "Rubbish!" he snapped. "Why would Quirrell want teh jinx Emily's broom?"

"Well, someone was jinxing it," said Ernie impatiently. "He and Snape were the only ones that were staring at Emily's broom and muttering. Since Marcy can tell when someone's good or evil, it's only natural to assume that Quirrell's the culprit, since she says he's evil and Snape isn't really."

Hagrid made a protest, which the others refused to listen to, and somehow the conversation turned to the three-headed dog at Hogwarts. Hagrid dropped a mug when he heard this and demanded, "How do yeh know abou' Fluffy?"

It turned out that he had gotten the dog from a Greek chappie he'd met in the pub last year and named Fluffy and lent it to Dumbledore. When asked why, he refused to tell and said that it was a matter between Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel.

"Oh, so there's someone named Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?" asked Terry with interest. Hagrid looked furious with himself for the slip.


	12. Chapter 12

December arrived with a great deal of snow. During their free time, the Hogwarts Gang were in the library, trying to find information on Nicolas Flamel, since Emily was certain she'd read the name somewhere. As the library was so large with tens of thousands of books and they had no idea what Flamel could have done to get in a book, the search wasn't going so well. Finally they asked the portrait of the Founders if they had any idea who Flamel was.

"He's a colleague of Dumbledore, and very old," answered Godric. "They worked on a project together once. And that's all we can tell you."

"Thank you, Lord Godric," said Justin politely and turned to look at the others, a frustrated look on his face.

Once inside the room, Padma said, "Well, that wasn't much help. Only an idiot wouldn't be able to tell that Flamel was a colleague of Dumbledore's."

"Yeah," said Seamus, making a face. "It's rather obvious since Dumbledore's hiding something for Flamel."

Alex got up and went to the cupboard where the Hogwarts Gang had decided to use to store treasured items of theirs that they didn't want to keep on their person or in their dormatories. "I think I'll sort out my chocolate frog card collection. It helps me think." He swung open the door and abruptly froze.

Out stepped an exact copy of him, with a wickedly happy expression. Alex backed up, a puzzled look on his face. It turned to absolute fear as the copy donned a Death Eater mask and started shouting, "Death to Mudbloods and filthy Muggles!" Copies of Hermione, Terry, Diana, and Dean appeared and the copy of Alex cried, "I hate you guys! I only pretended to be your friends. _Avada Kedavra_!" There was a burst of green light and the copies of the four Muggleborns (or possibly halfblood in Dean's case, since his birth father had disappeared when he was a baby and he now had a stepfather) fell to the ground, dead.

Alex, who was one of the bravest people Emily knew and had never shown any sign of fear before, now looked completely white. A horrified look briefly crossed his face, to be replaced by terror. His eyes welled with tears and he collapsed to the ground. Everyone else was a mix of puzzlement and fear, except for Ling, who went to stand in front of Alex. The five copies turned into the three-headed dog. "Riddikulus!" she said firmly. The three-headed dog changed into a normal dog in a clown costume and Ling then forced it into a box lying in the corner.

"That was a boggart," she said, turning around to look at her friends. "It turns into your worst fear and can only be defeated by laughter, so the best way to combat it is to think of some way to make your worst fear funny and transform the boggart into it. I encountered one when I was seven and Mum showed me how to defeat it. At the time, my worst fear was a, well, I guess you'd call it a demon or monster, from Chinese legend, but since seeing that three-headed dog, it changed." She then bent over Alex. "It's all right, Alex. The boggart is locked up in a box and I'll have Professor Flitwick get rid of it for us."

"It's not all right!" burst out Alex. He no longer had a look of terror, but he was still crying, and his eyes were full of pain. "Don't you realize what my worst fear is? It's becoming like the rest of the Carrows and using the 'm' word and believing the drivel about pureblood supremency and killing Muggleborns, particularly my friends, two of whom are my closest and oldest ones! Okay, Dean might not be Muggleborn, since he has no idea if his real father was a wizard or not, but since he doesn't have proof that he's a halfblood, prejudiced purebloods will just lump him as being the 'm' word. I don't want that coming true, but what if it does?"

"That is not going to happen, Alex," said Diana firmly. "How long have Em, Mia, and I known you? Over three years, right? We met two days after Hermione's ninth birthday. You've never shown any inclination of being like the rest of your family, and you've been a rebel far too long to ever turn out like them."

"But it could happen!" snapped Alex. "Or just because I'm from a Dark family, people could assume that I was evil and blame me if something terrible happened to one of you guys and there was no evidence that I _wasn't_ responsible. Like Sirius Black. The Blacks are a family like the Malfoys and mine, though the only Black left is Sirius. Well, the only male, anyway. The living females are married and have their husbands' last names. Anyway, Sirius was one of the very few decent Blacks and got disowned by his family. He was friends with your father, Em. But after Voldemort - oh, it's just a name - killed the adult Potters, everyone that's not a Death Eater believed that Black was the one who betrayed them. There was no evidence to the contrary, and everyone thought that Black was the Secret-Keeper."

"Excuse me?" asked Emily, blinking. "And what do you mean by the Secret-Keeper?"

"There's a spell called the Fidelus Charm," responded Alex. "It's used to hide things or people. One person, a Secret-Keeper, knows the location, and only he or she can tell others. The others that are told can't reveal the secret. Everyone thinks Sirius was your parents' Secret-Keeper, and therefore the only logical person to have revealed their location to Voldemort. But from what I heard from Father and Aunt Alecto, I know that Black wasn't a Death Eater. Father doesn't know exactly who it was that told Voldemort, but he knows it wasn't Sirius."

"But what about when he killed Peter Pettigrew and those twelve Muggles?" asked Daphne.

"That I don't know about," said Alex. "Pettigrew was another friend of your parents, Em. Supposedly when the Aurors were going after Black, Pettigrew got there first and shouted for the whole world to hear that Black was basically the one that betrayed the Potters. Next thing that anyone knew, the street was blown up and Pettigrew and twelve Muggles were killed. It was terrible. All that could really be found of Pettigrew was a finger. Black was arrested and given a life sentence in Azkaban. Since the evidence points to him being the one responsible, I guess he was. But I know for a fact that he wasn't a Death Eater and didn't betray the Potters. He's innocent of that much at least."

"Well, why didn't your father tell the Ministry that Sirius Black was innocent of betraying the Potters?" asked Anthony.

Alex sighed. "Tony, you're normally so smart. Wouldn't you have figured out that it would mean that my father would have to reveal himself as a Death Eater? Then he'd be in Azkaban right now. Not that I would mind. And it still might not help Black any. It could just look like someone trying to help out a fellow Death Eater."

Anthony looked chargrined. "You're right, Alex. I wasn't thinking."

"That's all right," said Alex. "But what if something similar happens to me? I get blamed for something terrible and then end up in Azkaban because there's no proof that I wasn't responsible? The rest of you would hate -"

"We would never hate you," interrupted Ernie firmly. "And we'd never abandon you either. If you were accused of something you never did, we'd stand up for you and work on your behalf to find you innocent, Alex. We're loyal to our friends, especially those in Hufflepuff. No offense to those of us not in Hufflepuff."

"Thanks, guys," said Alex, wiping his eyes and now looked a combination of grateful and determined. "You're the best friends ever."

Susan got up and took out Alex's card collection. "Here, maybe sorting through your cards will help soothe you, Alex."

"Thanks, Sue," said Alex, managing a tiny smile. He absentmindedly rummaged through the cards and allowed Neville and Terry to help himm.

"Here's Dumbledore's card," said Neville, holding it up.

"Oh, put that with the other two I have of him, Nev," said Alex, taking out his treasured Agrippa card. "Here, Ron, you can have this. You're missing Agrippa, right?"

"Y-yes," stammered Ron in shock. "But why are you giving it to me? Those are rare and you only have one of -"

"Just take it," said Alex. "It'll help me feel better after that boggart."

"All right, if you're sure," said Ron, reluctantly taking the card.

Terry gasped, for when he was handing Neville the other two Dumbledore cards, he'd paused to read the back. "I've found Flamel! It's on the back of Dumbledore's card! See? There's a bit about how Dumbledore was famous for finding the twelve uses of dragon blood and his work on alchemy with his partner Nicolas Flamel." The others instantly crowded around to look. In the end, the three Dumbledore cards were passed around so everyone could see.

Hermione took little more than a brief glance before she jumped up and began looking through the bookshelves in the room. After several minutes, she grabbed a large and thick tome and began flipping through it. Finally she found what she was looking for and turned to the others. She read out loud,

_"The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal._

_There have been many reports of the Philosopher's Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera-lover. Mr. Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight)._"

After a moment of surprised silence, Ernie said, "Oh, so that's what's being hidden at Hogwarts. The Philosopher's Stone!"

"No wonder someone's after it," said Blaise. "Anyone would want something that could make you fabulously wealthy and immortal."

"And no wonder we couldn't find Flamel in that S_tudy of Recent Developments in Wizardry_," said Ron. "He's not exactly recent if he's six hundred and sixty-five, is he?" The others gave him Looks.

Alex completely forget about the boggart to focus on the new find. "Well, what are we going to do now? We still have four days before we leave for the holidays."

"Speaking of the holidays, you're invited to spend it with Di and me, Ron," said Emily. "Since your parents and sisters are going to visit your brother Charlie in Romania. And Fred, George, and Percy are invited as well. I forgot to tell you earlier because we were so busy trying to find out who Flamel was."

Ron accepted and said he would pass on the invite to his brothers, though he doubted Percy would accept. While the twins had no problem with Ron in Slytherin and often joked about it, Percy disapproved over a Weasley being in Slytherin. It didn't help that Ron was friends with Blaise, Daphne, and Tracey, even though two of them had gotten Howlers for not being proper Slytherins and they were friends with students from the other three houses. The only thing that kept Percy from being a complete prat about it was Ron's friendship with Diana, simply because she was Muggleborn even if she was in Slytherin.

Alex grimaced. "Percy is rather annoying. After those Howlers I got from Father and Aunt Alecto, he gave me a lecture on obeying your elders and that I should have been in Slytherin or at least acted like a proper member of the family. He doesn't even care that if I were like my family, I wouldn't even be associating with the Weasleys since I'd think them blood-traitors and that I'd be as awful and mean as Malfoy!"

"Yeah, but Marcy told Percy off right after that lecture and Fred and George got him with a couple of pranks," pointed out Dean. "And we helped. Trust me, guys, you do not want to see Marcy when she's really mad about something. The twins said her cold fury was worse than their mum's yelling."

Ron winced. "Mum's yelling is pretty scary when she's mad at us, mainly the twins. It's a good thing that you're our friend and not enemy, Marcy, if that's the case."

Marcy snorted. "I'm not usually like that when I'm mad. It's just that Percy really got on my nerves with that lecture, and Alex's my friend, so he needed a thorough dressing down. That's all. Now, can we please get back to the Philosopher's Stone and Flamel?"

The conversation turned back to the Philosopher's Stone and they began wondering if the troll had been let in as a distraction so someone could try to go after the Stone. Seamus remembered that Snape had been limping for awhile after that incident, which meant he'd been injured in the leg.

"Don't even suggest that Snape might have tried to go after the Stone and was attacked by Fluffy," snapped Marcy. "He's not evil. Quirrell is more likely to be the one after he Stone, just based on his auras. We need to keep a closer eye on him."

The others agreed and then Ling and Padma went to take the boggart to Flitwick for it to be taken care off while the rest went to dinner.

The day before they left for Christmas break, Alex gave the rest of the Hogwarts gang their presents early, since he wasn't sure if he'd have a chance to deliver them over the holidays. Each got a notebook, which was identical except for the color of the covers, and a quill pen that would never run out of ink. He explained that he'd put a spell on the notebooks so that they were all linked to each other and were a method of communication. What was written in one notebook would appear in the others to be read, unless the writer first wrote the names of specific people, in which case the writing would only appear in the notebooks of those people. The writing would disappear after it was read. In case Alex wasn't allowed to send any letters as punishment, he would still have a method of communication with his friends, and they had a way to discuss things without being overheard.

The others thanked him for the wonderful gift and then they went to their respective dorm rooms to finish packing.

Author's Note: Thanks goes to a reviewe, crazzyredhead, who suggested that the Hogwarts Gang find out about Flamel sooner. Thanks also goes to a friend of mine, who suggested the incident Alex had with the boggart. I was thinking about what Alex's worst fear would be when I got to third year and wrote about Lupin's first Defense class and my friend suggested that I showed it now.


	13. Chapter 13

Emily hugged her aunt enthusiastically when Petunia met her and Diana at King's Cross. Diana then gave her mother a bear hug while Emily was being greeted by the Grangers. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alex being met by a couple that was most likely his father and Aunt Alecto and a somewhat elderly man that must have been his grandfather. All three adults had furious expressions that did not bode well for Alex. Emily hoped that he would be all right, but reminded herself that he was a tough person and would survive whatever punishment his family dealt out to him.

Ron and the twins were then greeted by Aunt Petunia and the Grangers and the group headed home. Since Aunt Petunia's car couldn't fit six people, Fred and George rode with the Grangers. When they arrived at the Evans's home, Emily discovered that she was sharing Diana's room and Ron would be staying in her room. Fred and George would be occupying the guest room. After everyone was settled, they went downstairs for supper.

Partway through, Aunt Petunia announced, "I'm taking you five to Diagon Alley tomorrow to buy dress robes. A couple of weeks ago, Mrs. Macmillian sent an invitation to a party she is holding on Christmas Eve. All the families of the ones in your 'Hogwarts Gang' have been invited. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley obviously can't attend, as they're in Romania, but I'm taking the three of you Weasleys. Mrs. Macmillian said she was sending us a Portkey, since we don't have access to the Floo Network."

When the matter of paying for the dress robes came up, Aunt Petunia informed Ron and the twins that she was paying for them and overrode their objections by saying that it would be a Christmas present. After dinner, Emily and Diana helped wash and dry the dishes and then they and Ron went to the living room with the notebooks Alex had given them. After the girls did their best to explain the telly, VCR, and a couple of other Muggle things to Ron, they opened their notebooks.

"Alex wrote to us!" exclaimed Diana. "Oh no, he's got terrible news. Why does he have such a horrible family?"

Emily and Ron made faces as they read, "_Alex here. Guys, please don't send your Christmas presents to me. Just give me them when we got back to Hogwarts. Amycus (I refuse to acknowledge him as my father), said that I was to have no communication with my friends, and all mail to me would be intercepted. Any presents from those he felt were unsuitable friends for me (which is everyone except Daphne, Tracey, Blaise, Ernie, and Susan) would likely be burned. So just write to me via the notebooks. I'm locked up in my room until further notice and either Adelly or Farra will bring me my meals. There's no leaving except to use the bathroom, and since one is connected to my room, that doesn't count. Alecto (I'm not acknowledging her as my aunt either), gave me my first lesson on proper behavior, which was really more of a punishment, right after I got home. I won't go into details. Amycus and his father then dealt out a punishment/lesson and after, Farra brought my dinner. He's sorry about what's going and wishes he could help, but I'm not going to have him do something that'll get him in trouble with the family if he's caught. And if he's not caught, he'll still have to punish himself for disobeying orders, and I doubt I could talk him into only doing extra chores and not inflicting self-harm. The same goes for Adelly. Well, Farra's back to take the dirty dishes away and he said that Amycus is going to be up soon to give me another punishment before he goes to bed, so I'll stop writing now. I don't want him finding out about my notebook and confiscating it. He'd probably burn it. You can write back, but I won't be able to read anything for at least an hour. Good-night._"

"That's not good," said Ron, face so pale that his freckles were very noticeable. "I shudder at what punishments his so-called family dealt out. And did you notice that Alex's handwriting was shaky? I hope the punishments weren't anything terrible."

Emily blinked, for Ron wasn't exactly the most observant person in the world. She took a second look just as the writing was starting to fade and saw that it was indeed rather shaky, as if he had written with his right hand (he was left-handed) or had suffered some great pain or scare that made it hard to write.

After awhile, Ling's handwriting appeared. "**Guys (except Alex), Ling here. I just read what Alex wrote, and reading between the lines, I think things aren't going well for him. And did you notice that his handwriting was shaky? Something definitely is up.**"

Diana was about to write a reply when Justin started writing. "I agree, guys. (Except Alex) This is Justin, by the way. I wish there were something we could do."

Next was Hermione's writing. "**_Guys (except Alex), calm down a bit. I'm worried about Alex, too, but he's a brave and tough person, and can deal with things. He wouldn't thank us for interfering unless he specially asked us to. The best thing we can do is offer our moral support._**"

"_(Do not send to Alex) Mia's right_," wrote Diana. "_We need to be there for Alex, but we can't do anything that'll get him in further trouble or make him annoyed with us._"

Blaise was the last one to write that evening. "**(Exclude Alex from this message) We'll figure something out. And nothing too bad can really happen to Alex. The Carrows will get in trouble if they do, and there aren't so many pureblood children around that parents will really harm them.**"

The next day dress robes were bought for the party and the afternoon was spent at the Grangers' home. Fred and George asked several questions about Muggle appliances and they all watched a couple of videos.

* * *

(Alex's POV)

It was the night before Christmas Eve and Alex was in his bed, doing his best not to cry. Nothing that his family did to him would induce him to act like a prejudiced pureblood, not even the Cruciatus Curse (which his aunt had subjected him to three times yesterday). However, he couldn't help being plagued with the doubt that he could be broken and tamely do whatever his family said. Remembering the boggart didn't help matters at all.

Alex wished Em, Di, and Mia were there in person to offer their moral support. All the stuff the rest of the Hogwarts Gang had written to him through the notebooks helped him get through whatever 'lessons' and punishments he was dealt out in silence and comforted him, but he wanted something more than writing.

After glancing at the clock, he saw that it was eleven. The rest of the family would be asleep. Alex sat up and summoned Adelly and Farra. "I don't want to be like this, but I really need the support of my friends in person. So could you two please pop over to the Evans' home and bring Em, Di, and Ron here? Then go to the Granger's home and bring Mia. And could you bring Nev, I mean Neville Longbottom, here also? Be careful about how you wake them up. And if you must punish yourself for this, just do an extra chore, Adelly and Farra."

Five minutes later, the five were in Alex's bedroom. Ron still looked rather sleepy, but he managed an expression of concern for his friend. Diana wrapped Alex in a hug. "What's the matter, Alex?" she asked quietly, a note of alarm in her voice.

"I just need your presence and support," answered Alex, trying to blink back his tears. It didn't really work, and with his friends there, he suddenly started weeping silently, not caring that males normally didn't show emotion like this. Neville, Emily, and Hermione quickly gathered around him. Ron looked a little uncomfortable with this display of emotion, but after a moment of hesitation, joined them and akwardly patted Alex on the shoulder.

"What has happened to you, Alex?" whispered Hermione, concern evident in her voice. "What did your so-called family do to you?"

"First, promise that you won't tell the others," said Alex, wiping his eyes. "The five of you are the closest to me, since I've known you the longest. I'll the others when I'm ready."

"We promise," said Emily, glancing at the others, who nodded. "Now, please tell us what's been going on."

"Between lectures on 'proper' behavior, I've been getting punishments," responded Alex. "Alecto decided that perhaps the Cruciatus Curse would get through to me and has done it on me at least once a day. And Amycus has caned me every day since I've been home."

Neville looked white. "Your aunt has actually used a Unforgiveable Curse on you? And one like that?"

"She's not my aunt," snapped Alex. "She's a foul person and the only reason I'm not calling her the word that rhymes with witch is because it'd be an insult to all female dogs. And yes, she did use the Cruciatus Curse on me. I only kept from screaming with a great force of will and remembering what my friends wrote to me."

Neville flinched and looked whiter. Hermione patted him on the arm, for last month he'd told the Hogwarts Gang the reason why he lived with his grandmother. "That's horrible!" exclaimed Neville, sitting down on the bed.

"Keep your voice down, Nev!" hissed Ron. "You don't want to be heard by the Carrows and get Alex in trouble."

"How can your family be so horrible?" Emily blazed in a lowered voice. "They all deserve to be shot for their treatment of you."

"Well, you can't do anything without making things worse," said Alex, shuddering. "The point is, what if they manage to break me? That's what I'm worried about."

"No wonder you're crying!" Diana hugged him again and continued, "You're tough, Alex, and a rebel. And you have nineteen wonderful friends who are there for you and will do anything to help you get through this. Remember all those pranks you played on your family that you told us about? You got punished for them, but it didn't stop you from continuing to do them. I know that you're not going to give in to your family and start acting like them."

Alex wiped his eyes and finally stopped crying. "You're right, Di. I'm being silly." He now started feeling somewhat embarrassed over his display of emotion.

"You're not being silly, Alex," said Ron firmly. "If I were in your place, I'd be the same. There's nothing wrong with being scared or worried sometimes. Most of the time you're brave, anyway, showing that you truly belong in Gryffindor."

After a few more minutes of more comforting words, Alex thanked his friends for their support and asked Adelly and Farra to take them home.

* * *

The Macmillian Christmas Eve party was wonderful. Emily wore dress robes of a light green. The Portkey (a length of rope), arrived ten minutes before the party was due to start. Ernie greeted his friends and then introduced his parents.

Several minutes later, Alex turned up, wearing dress robes of dark green and silver. "The rest of the Carrows are at the party the Malfoys are hosting," he explained. "Normally I would have gone too, but as I'm in disgrace, I can't. The fireplace in my room is connected to the Floo, so I'm here."

The Hogwarts Gang (except for Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise, who were attending the Malfoy party) crowded around Alex and asked if he was all right. He said he was, but none of them believed him, especially when he grimaced as he sat down. Padma hesitantly asked, "Has your father, I mean Mr. Carrow, been hitting you?"

"That is none of your business, Padma," replied Alex. "I don't want to discuss what's going on at home. I just want to enjoy the party."

This only served to tell the others (besides Em, Di, Neville, Mia, and Ron, who already knew) that the answer to Padma's question was 'yes' and they exchanged horrified looks. However, out of respect to Alex's desire, they didn't press the matter and the subject changed to the Philosopher's Stone.

Dinner was served at seven-thirty. After that, the Hogwarts Gang talked of miscellaneous matters and played Exploding Snap and wizard's chess. Neither Emily or Hermione were good at chess, but Diana was very good and could win against anyone except Ron (who was better at strategy than her).

At eleven, Alex left, as his father would be back from the Malfoy party at twelve and he wanted to be home just in case Amycus decided to be a little early. Not long after that, the other guests started leaving as well, including the Hogwarts Gang and their families.

The next day was Christmas and Emily couldn't help blinking at the large pile of presents she had. Then again, she did have nineteen friends. After working her way through the ones from her friends and family, (mostly books, sweets, and clothes, plus a scarf from Ginny) there were three presents remaining. One was from Hagrid, which contained a wooden flute that he had obviously carved himself. Another was from Mrs. Weasley, which contained an emerald green jumper and a box of fudge. Ron explained that his mother made jumpers every year at Christmas and this year included the Hogwarts Gang on the list. He added that his jumper was always maroon. The third present was an Invisibilty Cloak. The note accompanying it said that it had been left in the giver's possession before Emily's father had died and that it was now time it was returned to her, ending with a wish for a merry Christmas. There was no signature.

Ron and the twins looked awed by the Cloak, while Emily wondered over who had given it to her and the fact that it belonged to her father. Aunt Petunia reminded Emily not to cause trouble with the Cloak and then went to the kitchen to make breakfast. The kids tried out the Cloak and after, Emily locked it up in her trunk. The Hogwarts Gang had been practicing the Disillusionment Charm, but it looked as if she didn't need to do the spell now that she had her father's Invisibility Cloak.


	14. Chapter 14

After lying to his father and pretending that he was sorry and would behave like a proper pureblood in the future the day after Christmas, Alex no longer had to undergo punishments or lectures. He still couldn't send out letters to his friends other than Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise, but he didn't care because he had his notebook. He was no longer confined to his room, but he couldn't leave the house. That didn't bother him as Daphne, Tracey, and Blaise visited. They cheered him up immensely and Daphne one day wistfully said, "I really wish I hadn't been so annoying when I was younger, Alex. Then we could have been good friends. It wasn't until you made me see reason and we started Hogwarts that we became friends."

"That's all right, Daphne," said Alex. "Kids tend to believe what their parents tell them. It takes them awhile to figure things out on their own and stop believing everything they're told. If I weren't naturally a rebel, I would have swallowed everything I was told and ended up like Draco Malfoy, minus the spoiling."

Daphne's sister, Asteria, who would be attending Hogwarts the following year, visited as well, and she showed no signs of becoming a prejudiced pureblood. The again, Alex had spoken to her a few times before, and Daphne would convince her sister that Muggleborns were equals to purebloods. Alex made a note to have Asteria be introduced to Ginny, since Ron's sister was the same age as Asteria, and hopefully the two girls would become friends.

Two day before it was time to leave for Hogwarts, Aurors appeared at the Carrow home and arrested Alecto for using the Cruciatus Curse on her nephew. Alex couldn't figure out how it happened, as only his five closest friends knew and they had sworn not to tell anyone else. Then he realized that they had only promised not to tell the rest of the Hogwarts Gang and one of them could have told someone else. It would most likely be Neville, since Ron's parents were away and the Dr. Grangers and Ms. Evans couldn't exactly contact the Ministry. Neville could have told his grandmother, who then would have notified the Ministry.

That turned out to be wrong, for when Amycus Carrow protested and said that his sister never used such an Unforgiveable curse, Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt said curtly, "That's not what Mr. and Mrs. Greengrass informed me. When they asked you of a way to help train their daughter to behave more properly, you suggested the Cruciatus Curse, saying that your sister had used it on your son and it worked admirably. While they do wish to teach a daughter a lesson, purebloods aren't so abundant that they'd even think of using the curse. The Greengrasses were horrified that you would allow such a thing to happen to your son and contacted the Ministry."

Amycus cursed and Auror Dawlish added, "Think yourself lucky that you're not being arrested to, since there's no evidence that you did the Cruciatus Curse too." Alecto was led away and Amycus stormed about the house in anger for the rest of the day. Alex was rather pleased with the whole situation, even if it meant that Daphne and Asteria could no longer visit. He would still see them at Hogwarts, and unless families like the Malfoys and Parkinsons chose to snub the Greengrasses for what they had done, he'd see them at parties.

After that was the trip back to Hogwarts. During the journey, Daphne took Alex aside and demanded, "Why didn't you tell about what your aunt was doing to you, Alex? You can imagine how shocked Teria and I were when we heard our parents going on over what Mr. Carrow told them. Father informed me that while he wanted me to behave better, he wasn't about to use a spell like that to teach me a lesson, especially considering that there aren't many purebloods these days and children are therefore precious."

"I didn't really feel comfortable," responded Alex. "Besides, there was nothing you could really do, other than say some words to try and make me feel better."

"Well, I could have told my parents about it!" snapped Daphne, looking angry. "When you will stop being so idiotically brave and _Gryffindor_! Your so-called family has been doing horrible things to you in an effort to teach you to behave the way they want, but you keep silent and not tell your friends so that they can really help you! Sue's aunt is high-up in the Ministry, Nev's grandmother has some pull, and Ron, Ernie, Tony, Ling, and Padma have parents with some connections, and they all could have done something! It wouldn't make you cowardly to tell someone what was going on and get some help. If Mr. Carrow hadn't told my parents what his sister was doing to you, you'd still be under the threat of it happening again!"

"I was embarrassed!" cried Alex. "I didn't want any of my friends to know what was going on!" That was a lie, but he didn't want to make things worse with Daphne by telling her that his closest friends in the Hogwarts Gang knew and had been sworn to secrecy.

"Embarrassed? You should know us better than that! We'd never make fun of you or anything! And if it's pity that you don't want, well, you should know that we have enough sense not to show it in front of you and none of us would start treating you any different. Why couldn't you at least have confided in Em, Di, and Mia? They're your first and oldest friends, and you should feel comfortable enough around them to tell them what was going on! They might not be able to have really done anything, but they could have at least written to the Weasleys about it and gotten some help."

"Okay, I did tell them," admitted Alex. "And Ron and Nev. After the girls, they're my closest friends in the group besides you, Tracey, and Blaise, because I met them before school started. But I made them promise not to tell anyone."

"Will you stop acting so _Gryffindorish_?" demanded Daphne, looking exasperated. "You wouldn't be a coward to let them actually tell someone else that could help!"

"Being in Gryffindor has nothing to do with my behavior!" snapped Alex, thoroughly fed up. "I'd have acted like that if I had been in any of the other three houses!"

"Fine, be that way!" retorted Daphne, throwing up her hands. "I give up on you! You can consider your friendship with me over!"

"Excuse me?" asked Alex, not sure that he had heard correctly. "You're no longer my friend? Just because I didn't want what Alecto was doing to me known?"

Daphne turned pale. "Oh, Merlin, of course not! I didn't mean what I said. I was just so angry with you for being so stubborn and idiotic that it just came out. I'm very sorry, Alex."

"Apology accepted," said Alex. "But if our situations were switched, would you have told our friends what was going on and not swear them to secrecy, Daphne?"

She considered for a moment and sighed. "You have a point. I guess I would feel embarrassed and not really want to tell anyone, either. Okay, I'm sorry that I was so mad at you. Now, let's go back to the others before they start wondering what's taking us so long and look for us."

* * *

Back at Hogwarts, Emily stared at the Invisibility Cloak and wondered what she would do with it. A part of her wanted to put it on and go exploring around the school at night. But what was the point, when she knew the school quite well already and didn't have much of a desire to find secret passages out the school like the Weasleys twins did in their first year? Well, she did want to put the Cloak to use, and not by simply lending it to the twins so they cause even more pranks and mayhem. Finally she decided to use it just once to wander about the castle after curfew, but no more than that.

During her wanderings, she made an unexpected turning and looked around, wondering where exactly she was. She wasn't sure if she had explored this part of the castle thoroughly. Sounds of Filch approaching made her dive into the nearest room, whose door was ajar. After the caretaker had passed, Emily looked around the room she was in. It appeared to be an unused classroom, with a tall and rather beautiful mirror in a corner. Wondering what the mirror was doing there, she walked over to look and stifled a scream as she saw that she was not alone, according to the reflection. She swiftly turned, but there was nobody behind her. She turned back to the mirror and saw the same group of people. Was there invisible people in the room with her and the mirror made their reflections visible? She gasped as she recognized Emily and Aunt Petunia and knew that it wasn't the case.

She looked closely at the other figures and saw her parents and another couple that she knew were her maternal grandparents, based on pictures of them. There was a third couple that she guessed was her paternal grandparents, as they were elderly and the man looked liked her father and the woman had her father's hazel eyes. From what she saw in teh mirror, it looked wonderful. Emily loved her life with Aunt Petunia and Diana and there was nothing lacking, but there were times when she wished that her parents and grandparents were still alive so she could have gotten to know them. It would have been absolutely wonderful, her living with her parents and constantly visiting her aunt, cousin, and grandparents or their visiting her.

Emily finally tore her gaze from the reflected image to examine the mirror. Around the edge was written, "_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_." She pondered over the inscription, because it didn't seem to be in any langauge she recognized. It definitely was in a Latin-based language, for it wasn't in Arabic script and she knew Chinese and Japanese were in characters, one for each word. But it wasn't English, nor French (she could speak some of the language), and it didn't seem to be Spanish, German, Porteguese, or Italian, for she'd seen samples of those languages. After some thought and the fact that it was a mirror, she realized that the inscription was backwards, in mirror-writing so to speak. Using that, she was able to figure out, "I show not your face but your heart's desire."

"So this mirror shows us our heart's desire!" exclaimed Emily in a whisper. "What we want most. And for me, it looks as if my heart's desire is to not just be with Aunt Petunia and Di, but also have my parents and grandparents alive and with me as well." She gazed at the mirror in silence for a few more minutes, as Aunt Petunia, her mother, and grandmothers blew her kisses. Her father appeared to mouth the words, "I'm proud of you," and her grandfathers mouthed, "I love you."

Finally Emily shook herself out of her daze and firmly told herself to go to bed and not go looking for the mirror anymore. While she loved gazing at her parents and grandparents, she knew quite well that they were dead and no amount of staring in the mirror would bring them back to life. They would not want her to waste her time with the mirror and longing for something that could never happen, short of a miracle from God. Which she doubted would happen, since according the Bible, Jesus had raised a man from the dead, but Lazurus had only been dead three or four days, not ten years.

She took one final look at the vision in the mirror and left the room, making sure that she was completely covered by the cloak. She would tell the rest of the Hogwarts Gang of this, but she was not returning, and was going to advise her friends not to look for the mirror either.


	15. Chapter 15

After hearing about the mirror, there was some discussion as to what their greatest desires would be. A few, like Ron and Dean, wanted to actually find the mirror and check, but after a great deal of persuasion from the girls, decided against it. The thing that really talked them out of it was Marcy saying, "If you go looking for the mirror, I have a feeling that you'd be caught by Filch or one of the teachers. It doesn't matter that we've just mastered the Disillusionment Charm or that Em would lend us her Cloak. Anyone wandering about after curfew tonight would still get caught. If you really want to know what your greatest desire is, I'll see if I can't use my Gifts to figure it out." As her 'feelings' and glimpses of the future had been accurate so far, unless someone did something to change them, they listened.

When they weren't doing homework or hanging out, Marcy tried to use her Gifts to help with the problem over the Philosopher's Stone. All that happened was being further convinced that Quirrell was completely as evil as his auras showed and a feeling that he was likely person after the Stone. Some with the Gift of seeing the future could control it, but she apparently couldn't and if she did get any visions of future concerning the Stone, it would appear when she wasn't expecting it. The only thing that happened of note was one afternoon in early February when the Hogwarts Gang was in the Founders' Room doing their homework.

Marcy suddenly gave a jerk, making an ink blot appear on the essay she was writing. She dropped her quill and knocked over her inkwell as she gave another jerk and then sat bolt upright in her chair. In a deeper voice than she normally spoke in, she said, "_The Dark Lord will attempt to return to power, but will not be successful until his third attempt. The one fated to have the power to defeat him will be present during the incident. Dark times will then fall, but a union of the four houses will conquer evil. With the help of her many friends, the one with the power to fully defeat the Dark Lord will finally do so._"

Everyone stared at Marcy in shock as she finished speaking and slumped over the table. Then she blinked, shook herself, and sat up. "I think I blacked out for a bit."

"You just predicted the future!" exclaimed Diana. "A prophecy, like in the ancient Greek and Roman myths about the Oracle of Delphi."

"Di, you must be dreaming," said Marcy, shaking her head. "I think I would know if I told a prophecy. I just blacked out for a moment."

"You did tell a prophecy!" insisted Susan. "We all heard you. You knocked over your bottle of ink when you jerked and then sat upright in your chair and spoke in a deeper voice than you normally talk in. I've heard that some Seers don't know when they make a prophecy and maybe you're like that, Marcy."

"Me, a Seer?" scoffed Marcy. "I'm most definitely not a Seer. I just have a Gift of sometimes being able to see the future, which I can't even control."

"But that's precisely what a Seer is!" exclaimed Tracey. "Someone with the ability of being able to see or predict the future! Not all Seers can control that Gift."

"Okay, maybe I did tell a prophecy," said Marcy, sighing. "But what was it that I said?"

"I can't repeat it word-for-word," said Terry, "but it was along the lines of the Dark Lord trying to return to power and not be successful until his third attempt. The person with the power to defeat him, probably Em since she was the one that defeated him the first time, would witness it. Dark times will fall then, but a union of the four houses would vanquish evil. And the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord would finally do so with the help of her many friends."

"Interesting," said Marcy, frowning in thought. "So Em is going to defeat Voldemort once and for all sometime in the future with our help. And the whole inter-house unity going on will conquer evil. But that's not going to happen for a few years yet, I hope."

Hermione gasped. "Quirrell's not after the Stone! Or at least, he's not after it for himself. It's for V-Voldemort! He's the one really after the Stone in hopes of using it to come back to full power! After the prophecy Marcy made, it's all clear to me!"

Emily groaned. "That's just wonderful. Thanks to Voldemort, I never knew my parents. I don't need him making life worse for me. I love Aunt Petunia and I'm glad she brought me up so well, but it would have been even better to have my parents and Aunt Petunia just be a regular loving aunt, not mother figure."

"Look on the bright side," said Seamus. "You-Know-Who's not going to succeed in his attempt to go after the Stone and use it to return to power."

"Not unless _this_is his third attempt," pointed out Padma. There were groans from the others at this pronouncement, except Blaise.

"I don't think so," he said. "We'd have heard if V-V-Vol-You-Know-Who made other attempts to return to power before and was stopped."

"Are you sure?" asked Daphne. "Everyone in the wizarding world except us, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and a few others think that You-Know-Who's gone for good. The Ministry wouldn't believe that he was still alive if there were such attempts, and even if they did, they wouldn't broadcast the news. They won't want to start a panic."

"But there still would be news of some madman wanting power," argued Blaise. "Ever since You-Know-Who's defeat, the only things of note that's happened are what happened to Neville's parents and Cornelius Fudge taking over as Minister of Magic from Millicent Bagnold. And you might count the break-in at Gringotts."

"What I want to know is how I've suddenly started making prophcies," said Marcy, a frown on her face. "Why haven't I made any before if I have the Gift?"

"Maybe you have made prophecies before, but there was nobody around to witness it and tell you about it," suggested Justin.

"Well, you guys are staying out of this," said Emily firmly. "I may be the one that can fully defeat Voldemort, but I don't want the rest of you involved and getting yourselves killed on my account like my parents were."

"Didn't you even hear the prophecy, Em?" demanded Alex angrily. "It said that you would be able to finally defeat Voldemort with the help of your many friends! If you honestly that I would abandon you and not have any part in this, you're mistaken. And the same would go for Di and Mia."

The others quickly voiced their support and made it very clear that no matter what Emily said, they would be a part of this and would willingly help her defeat Voldemort, even if it did end in their deaths. She sincerely thanked her friends for their support and then helped Marcy clean up the spilled ink on her half-finished essay.

When February drew to a close, Quidditch practice resumed again. The next match for Hufflepuff was against Gryffindor. If Cormac McClaggen continued to act the way he did in the Gryffindor-Slytherin match, there was little doubt that Hufflepuff would win. A week before the match, Johanna Kraler announced that for some reason, Professor Snape was going to be refereeing the match. The entire team found it odd, as Snape never refereed at Quidditch matches. In fact, it was usually only Madam Hooch who was referee. It wasn't until one of the chasers pointed out that it would only be good for them, since Snape would probably favor Hufflepuff considering that he hated Gryffindors and this match would take them out of the running for the Quidditch Cup if they lost, that they dismissed the matter.

Emily could care less about it all, for she was confident that she could beat McClaggen to the Snitch, but hoped that Gryffindor wouldn't do too badly for the sake of her Gryffindor friends. She did work up her courage and went to see Professor Snape after Potions class that week. While he clearly favored Slytherins, he had never been mean to her, and at the end of each class, usually said that the potion she had made was 'acceptable' or 'would do'. Coming from him, that was a compliment and the equivalent of 'excellent work', as he normally praised only the Slytherin's work.

"Professor Snape?" she asked tenatively. "My aunt told me that you used to be friends with my mother. I've been meaning to ask you about it earlier, but I never got around to it."

Snape gazed at her, an unreadable expression on his face. Then he nodded curtly and led her to his office. "So what do you want to know, Miss Potter?" he asked.

"Aunt Petunia said that you lived in the same town as she did and was the one that told Mum about magic and Hogwarts. You and Mum were friends until after your fifth year. Since Aunt Petunia wasn't speaking to Mum at the time, she only knows that the two of you had a falling out, but none of the details."

Snape sighed, staring at the girl who looked so much like Lily. It was this and the fact that Emily showed very little of James other than inheriting his eyesight and Quidditch skill that made him not treat her the way he did with students that weren't Slytherin. "I made a mistake, Miss Potter. Your father and I did not get along in school. There was an incident when James Potter hung me upside down with magic. Your mother came to my rescue, but as I was angry, as well as embarrassed that I was rescued by a girl, I was not grateful at all. In fact, I made the mistake of calling your mother the derogatory term for Muggleborns. I instantly regretted it and tried to apologize to your mother afterwards, but she refused to accept it and from then on our friendship was over. I have never forgiven myself for what I did and if it had never happened, perhaps I would not have made some of the choices I did."

Emily couldn't help feeling a small surge of anger at her mother. Yes, Snape shouldn't have called her a Mudblood, but he didn't mean it! After all, he was angry over what James had done to him, and what male doesn't feel embarrassed at being rescued by a female? Alex had certainly been embarrassed that time Di had rescued him when he had been about to fall off the tree they'd been climbing. Yes, he'd thanked her for saving him, but he had still been embarrassed about it. Lily Potter should have forgiven Snape and continued their friendship. Emily had no idea what bad choices Snape did, and wasn't about to pry, but preventing them from happening would have ben great.

"Mum shouldn't have done that," said Emily indignantly. "I know that guys are normally embarrassed when they're saved by a girl. And you were angry at Dad, also. If it had been me, I would have accepted your apology for using the 'm' word and continued the friendship."

Snape shook his head. "No wonder you're in Hufflepuff, Miss Potter. You're extremely loyal to your friends."

"Of course I am," said Emily, slightly taken aback. "Though if I hadn't asked to be placed in Hufflepuff, the Sorting Hat would have put me in Gryffindor based on what it said about me."

Snape couldn't help looking surprised at that. "You actually wanted to be in Hufflepuff? But why, Miss Potter?"

"My friends at the time had unexpected Sortings, except maybe Hermione, because she is as smart as she is brave, and Alex was only unxpected to the ones that didn't know him well, Professor. I decided that I wanted to have an unexpected Sorting as well, and Hufflepuff was the first house that came to mind. I didn't want to fit the mold expected of the Girl-Who-Lived by going to Gryffindor."

"Good reasoning." He actually looked amused. "Well, do you have anything else that you want to ask me about?"

"Why are you refereeing the match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor? I don't care about it, but my teammates are very curious."

Snape sighed. "I'm refereeing in hopes of preventing what happened to you during your first match from happening again."

"Oh," said Emily. "So Quirrell _was_ jinxing my broom. My friends saw you and him staring at me and muttering and the figured out that one was cursing my broom and the other was doing the countercurse. They thought it was most likely Quirrell, based on the fact that Marcy Horowtiz can tell that he's evil and you're, well, if not always nice, at least on the side of good. Thank you, Professor. Mum really shouldn't have broken off her friendship with you. I don't have anything more to ask of you now, but can we talk again in the future? I want to learn more about my mother, since Aunt Petunia can't tell me anything flattering about her after she went to Hogwarts. Jealously over magic, you know."

"We may, but please be discreet about it, Miss Potter," said Snape. "It would look odd if you and I were shown to be on friendly terms, as you're not in Slytherin."

"I will, Professor Snape. Thank you again." Emily smiled, making her look even more like her mother, and left the office.

The day before the Quidditch match, one of the Chasers came down with a nasty case of the cold and was told by Madam Pomfrey that she wasn't to play tomorrow. So Cedric Diggory would play in her place.

The match, to everyone's utter surprise, was extremely short. Dumbledore was in the audience and Emily vaguely thought that Snape didn't have to referee after all, as Quirrell wasn't going to do anything with the headmaster there. Snape awarded Hufflepuff two penalties, once when one of the Weasley twins hit a Bludger at him and once for no apparent reason at all. It was after the second penalty that Emily spotted the Snitch and went streaking after it. The rest of the Hogwarts Gang cheered her on.

Snape turned aside as a yellow and black streak shot past him and a few seconds later, Emily pulled out of the dive, her arm raised triumphantly, clutching the Snitch. The stands were in an uproar, for nobody could remember the Snitch being caught so quickly. It had to be a record since the game had barely alsted five minutes. Lee Jordan shouted out the results, that Hufflepuff had won one hundred sixty points to ten, in a disappointed tone of voice.

The Hufflepuffs and the Hogwarts Gang ran down to the field to congratulate Emily. Johanna Kraler hugged her and then told Cedric he'd done a good job as Chaser, as he was the one that had scored the only goal. After showering, changing, and putting her broom away, Emily was whisked away to the celebratory party the Hufflepuffs were having.


	16. Chapter 16

A couple of days after the Quidditch match, Hermione went into a panic over the end-of-year exams. She began colour-coding her notes and drew up a study schedule. None of the others would have minded, except that she began insisting they do the same. The other four Ravenclaws, while concerned about the exams, were not in the state Hermione was in, and told her to slow down a bit. Emily and Diana were used to this and said, "There's no need to worry, Mia. You're the smartest person in the year and will definitely pass the exams."

"But what if I don't?" wailed Hermione. "These exams are important! If we don't pass, we'll either have to repeat the year or get thrown out of Hogwarts!"

"Hermione, the exams are ages away," said Ron. "You don't need to -"

"Ten weeks," Hermione interrupted with a snap. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

"But we're not six hundred years old!" cried Alex, losing patience. "You're not going to fail the exams, Mia, so stop worrying about it!"

"How do you know? You can't see the future! I could fail and then I'll be expelled and it'll -"

"Hermione Jean Granger, enough!" Marcy looked extremely annoyed. "I can see the future and it says that we're all going to pass the end-of-year exams. You'll come in first."

Emily suspected that Marcy might have made it up just to get Hermione to shut up, but it worked and she calmed down. However, that didn't stop her from studying and reminding her friends to do the same, adding that it wasn't wise to tempt fate and the future could be changed. The teachers were of the same mind as Hermione, giving out so much homework that the Easter holidays were nowhere as fun as the Christmas holidays. Therefore the Hogwarts Gang could be found either in the library or the Founders' room, doing homework or studying. Visits with Hagrid stopped completely, for after the first visit with him, they had taken to seeing him in groups of no more than five or six almost every week. All of them could have gone together, but as it was rather crowded when all twenty of them were in the hut, they had decided to split it up and visit in smaller groups.

One very lovely afternoon, Emily threw down her quill and looked longingly out the window. She would love to be outside, enjoying the weather, and was very tired of studying. She was smart and didn't easily forget things, so there was very little chance of her failing the exams. But Hermione would pitch a fit if she stopped studying all together.

"What are you doing in the library, Hagrid?" asked Justin, surprised. Emily turned to look. Hagrid, looking out of place, stopped to look at them, holding something behind his back.

"Er, nothin' much," said Hagrid in a shifty voice that got their attention at once. "What're yeh all up to?"

"We're studying," answered Anthony.

Marcy suddenly gasped and stared at Hagrid, wide-eyed. "Oh no, Hagrid, you didn't!" she exclaimed in a whisper.

He gave her a funny look and then left the library. "What was Hagrid doing in the library?" asked Tracey. "And what was he hiding behind his back?"

"I'll go check the section he was in," said Ron, jumping to his feet. "I need a break from all this studying." He returned a minute later with several books in his arms. "Dragons! Hagrid was looking up information on dragons. I wonder why. Other than the fact that he likes dragons so much."

Marcy groaned. "Great, now my vision is definitely going to come true. I saw a dragon egg hatching in Hagrid's house. This is terrible." Seeing Justin's confused look, she explained, "Dragon breeding is against the law. Nobody is supposed to have dragons eggs of their own and try to hatch them. Hagrid's going to be a lot of trouble if he's caught."

"We need to have a talk with him," said Ling. "Talk him out of what he's doing. And while we're at it, we can also ask if he has any idea what the other protections on the Stone are."

A couple of hours later, the entire Hogwarts Gang went to see Hagrid. They exchanged looks when they saw that the curtains and shutters were shut. Hagrid asked "Who is it?" when they knocked and only let them in when Emily said they knew what he was up to and wasn't going to tell on him.

Once inside and the door was shut, everyone looked over at the blazing fire in the fireplace, which had a dragon egg in it. There were several groans and nobody paid much attention to the fact the room was stifling hot in the face of this new worry. "Hagrid, are you crazy?" demanded Daphne, uncharacteristically untactful. "Dragon breeding's against the law!"

"And what about when the egg hatches?" continued Padma. "The dragon will grow quickly. Within a couple of months, it'll be too big for your house. Then where will you hide it? In the Forbidden Forest? The centaurs and unicorns and other creatures living there won't like having a dragon. And people will notice when sections of forest start burning."

"Hagrid," added Hermione, "you live in a wooden house. The dragon could burn it down while it's still small enough to live in it."

"But it wouldn' do that!" protested Hagrid. "Dragons are wonderful an' amazin' creatures!"

"Yes, but they won't make great pets," said Blaise firmly. "That dragon would be better off at a perserve, like the one Ron's brother is working at."

"That's an idea," said Emily thoughtfully. "We send the egg to Charlie and let the keepers at the perserve take care of it." They all spent the next hour persuading Hagrid and he finally agreed to send the egg to Charlie. Emily and Alex went to get Hedwig and Emerald while Terry and Seamus wrapped up the egg and Hermione did a heating spell that would keep the egg warm during the journey. Fifteen minutes later, Emerald flew off with the wrapped egg and Hedwig with a note Ron had written, explaining matters, and Hagrid waved at the departing owls, a few tears in his eyes. "I wish I coulda seen Norbert hatch," he said, having named the unhatched dragon already. "But I guess he'll be happier at the perserve."

"He will," said Ron. "Charlie and the other keepers will take good care of the dragon."

Dean then asked about the other protections on the Stone, but Hagrid said he didn't know and wouldn't tell even if he did. After a bit of flattery from Hermione, Hagrid did tell who were the others that provided protection. All the heads of houses, Quirrell, and Dumbledore had all done stuff to protect the Stone. Dumbledore and Hagrid were the only ones that knew how to get past Fluffy and it was going to stay that way. The Hogwarts Gang couldn't help feeling relieved.

Everyone then bid Hagid good-bye, promising to visit later, and headed back to the castle for supper. They were extremely pleased to have solved the dragon crisis so quickly, and happy to have gotten some information concerning the Stone.

Revising continued, and Hermione got increasingly nervous as the exams drew near, despite Marcy telling her that out of all the different possible futures she saw, none of them showed Hermione failing. Everyone stared at Marcy, who sighed and explained, "Sometimes I get visions of several possible futures, not one." When Hermione left the table to get a book, however, Marcy said in a whisper, "I made that up. I really don't have the ability and only said it to get Hermione to calm down. Don't tell her."

On the way to the Founders' room one afternoon, Emily passed a classroom with an ajar door. She heard a sobbing sound and stopped to listen. It was apparently Quirrell, pleading about something. Finally he said in defeat, "All right." She quickly ducked behind a statue and a moment later, Quirrell walked out the room, trembling. Once he was gone, Emily peeked into the classroom, but say no sign of anyone he could have been talking to. The opposite door was ajar, however, so someone could have left that way.

When she told her friends about it, Ron looked excited and wanted to do some looking into it, but Hermione instantly squashed the idea. Dean and Seamus backed Ron up, which made Blaise shake his head and mutter, "I don't why you're in Slytherin and not Gryffindor, Ron. Sometimes you just act like a stereotypical Gryffindor, ready to rush into things. No offense."

"I don't want to go looking into things at the moment," said Emily. "Quirrell may have figured out the other protections, but he can't have found how to get past Fluffy. The Stone is safe for now and I would like to just focus on my exams and Quidditch. I want to get good marks and for Hufflepuff to win the Quidditch Cup."

Ron made a protest, but Marcy said firmly, "There is nothing we can do at the moment about the Stone. We'll get in trouble if we pursue the matter now and do you really want to lose loads of points and do a detention? Yesterday Hagrid mentioned how something was attacking unicorns and I wouldn't be surprised if a detention was to help him in the Forbidden Forest as a result. As for the future, the only thing I see is that the Stone isn't going to be in danger anytime soon. And by soon I mean within the next three weeks. When the exams are over, we can have the luxury to worry about Quirrell and the Stone and deal with it then. All right?"

There were no more protests and everyone turned their attention back to studying, and in Emily's case, also focused some time on Quidditch practice, for Hufflepuff would have their final match, against Slytherin, just after the exams. If Hufflepuff won the match, they'd win the Quidditch Cup, for the first time in fifty years.

Author's Note: I don't want this to be an exact copy of the books, which is why I cut out Norbert hatching and the trouble it took to get him to Charlie. With the Hogwarts Gang present, things are going to go differently, and twenty people would be able to persuade Hagrid that a dragon would be better off at a perserve in a hour rather than a week and also that it would be best if experts helped hatched it. So as a result, there was no midnight trip to the Astronomy tower to deliver Norbert to Charlie's friends and being caught by Filch. Though in this universe, Emily wouldn't be stupid enough to forget the Invisibility Cloak, no matter how happy she'd be to finally get rid of Norbert. There's no detention in the Forbidden Forest, but Hagrid did mention something was attacking unicorns, and in the next chapter, the Hogwarts Gang will find out from him that the something was drinking unicorn blood. Things will go on from there, with the group taking a break to figure out the use of unicorn blood and then realizing who is really the one after the Stone.


End file.
